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Recent Congressional Activity Summary-Week of October 23rd

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you the latest information and developments around federal policy. This dedication includes in-depth summaries of what is going on in Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT). Check out what you may have missed this past week in Congress and at U.S. DOT.

Senate Approves FY18 Budget

On October 19th, after a series of amendments the Senate approved H. Con. Res. 71, a concurrent resolution establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2018 and setting budgetary levels for fiscal years 2019 through 2027. The proposed budget significantly reduces non-defense discretionary spending, which would likely require cuts to transit Capital Investment Grants, TIGER, and passenger rail programs. The Senate-passed budget must now be reconciled with the budget approved by the House on October 5th. Both chambers must pass identical budgets to utilize reconciliation (a process by which legislation only needs 51 votes in the Senate) to approve tax reform. T4America will provide updates as the House and Senate work to approve a final FY18 budget. It is important to note, however, that additional budget legislation will be necessary to raise the sequester caps set in the Budget Control Act, allowing Congress to complete its FY18 appropriations work.

Senate Environment and Public Works Reschedules Vote on FHWA Nominee

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee postponed an October 18th meeting during which it was planning to vote on Paul Trombino’s nomination to be FHWA Administrator. T4America has been informed that postponing the meeting was unrelated to Mr. Trombino’s nomination. This meeting has been rescheduled for this Wednesday, October 25th and we expect his nomination to be approved.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Holds Infrastructure Hearing

On October 11th, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit held a hearing entitled: “Building a 21st Century Infrastructure for America: Highway and Transit Stakeholders’ Perspectives”. You can watch the full hearing here. In a wide-ranging hearing, the panel of witnesses discussed a variety of issues important to the transportation community. Witnesses and Members agreed on the importance of a long-term solution to the solvency of the highway trust fund. Republicans on the Committee were focused on alternatives to funding the trust fund beside the gas tax. Democrats on the Committee expressed frustration that there have been several hearings about the importance of a long term solution to the trust fund but the Committee has not marked up, or held hearings on, legislation that would raise more funding for the highway trust fund.

Mr. Peter Rogoff, Chief Executive Officer, Sound Transit made a forceful case for transit investment and noted how the President’s budget and House appropriations package actually cuts transit funding, especially the Capital Investment Grant program, and would harm communities like Seattle that have raised billions in local funds for transit investments with the understanding that the Federal government would match the local commitment.

This hearing is part of an effort to prepare Congress to develop an infrastructure package. T4America will provide additional updates as the Administration and Congress work on this issue.

Recent Federal Activity Summary – Week of October 9th

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you the latest information and developments around federal policy. This dedication includes in-depth summaries of what is going on in Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT). Check out what you may have missed these past two weeks in Congress and at U.S. DOT.

President and Congressional Leaders Release Tax Reform Proposal

On September 27th, the Trump Administration, the House Committee on Ways and Means, and the Senate Committee on Finance released what they call the “Unified Framework for Fixing Our Broken Tax Code”. The full framework is available here, and a one-page overview is available here. The proposal would eliminate many tax benefits, including the commuter transit benefit. In 2016, federal law was changed to establish permanent parity between the transit benefit and parking benefit, raising the cap on transit and vanpool benefits to $255.

Tax reform efforts are focused on eliminating many provisions of the tax code, including transportation fringe benefits that cover parking, transit, and vanpools. T4America is concerned that, under the recently released framework, the commuter benefit is at risk of disappearing for good. Eliminating this benefit will end a critical incentive to take transit to and from work, taking money from transit systems already struggling to maintain a state of good repair. T4America will keep you updated as Congress moves forward with this process.

House and Senate Advance FY18 Budgets

The Process: The President submits the President’s Budget Request (PBR) to Congress in the spring. Soon thereafter, the House and Senate Budget Committee’s develop budgets that may or may not be informed by the PBR. Before Congress can consider the 12 appropriations bills that fund the entire federal government, it must first approve a budget. The Congressional budget sets the funding allocations for each of the 12 appropriations bills, allowing the appropriations committees to begin work on the bills. For FY18, the Congressional leadership has chosen to add “reconciliation instructions” to the budget. This is a special process, under which a bill can pass with without a filibuster, using only a majority vote in the Senate (as opposed to the traditional 60 votes). The FY18 budget will include instructions to approve comprehensive tax reform using this process. Passage of an FY18 budget allows Congress to complete its FY18 appropriations work.

The House: On October 5th, the House approved H. Con. Res. 71 — “Establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2018 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2019 through 2027” by a vote of 219-206. H.Con.Res.71 cuts transportation funding, including cuts to Amtrak’s long distance routes, transit, TIGER, New and Small Starts, bike and pedestrian funding, and many other priorities.

The Senate: On September 29th, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Enzi (R-WY) released his FY18 budget. The proposed budget reduces non-defense discretionary spending by $632 billion. This would have a significant negative impact on our transportation programs. The Committee marked up and approved the budget on October 4th and 5th. The full Senate will now consider the budget in the coming weeks.

T4America will provide additional analysis of the House and Senate budgets in the coming weeks.

Senate Environment and Public Works hearing on FHWA nominee

On October 5th, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee held a Hearing on the Nomination of Paul Trombino III to be Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Mr. Trombino is the President of McClure Engineering and the former Director of the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Mr. Trombino has a history of public comments suggesting an openness to new ways of thinking about our nation’s highway system. T4America submitted suggested questions to the Committee to help prepare for the hearing. Chairman Barasso (R-WY), Ranking Member Carper (D-DE), and Members of the Committee focused their questions on the proposed infrastructure bill, project review and approval process, resilience, and Public Private Partnerships. Mr. Trombino stated he is not aware of the status of the proposed infrastructure package but that he will become aware and brief Congress should he be confirmed. On other issues, Mr. Trombino pledged to work to address Senators concerns.

Absent any additional and disqualifying information, T4America expects the EPW Committee to favorably report Mr. Trombino’s nomination to the full Senate.

Senate Commerce Committee Approves Autonomous Vehicle Legislation

On Friday, September 8, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved held a markup to amend and vote on S. 1885, The American Vision for Safer Transportation through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies (AV START) Act. The bill was approved by the Committee and will now be referred to the full Senate for further consideration. Despite some minor improvements, T4America remains concerned that this bill will preempt the ability of local governments to enforce their local traffic safety laws, potentially putting the public at risk. In addition, the bill does not provide the data-sharing framework necessary to ensure that local governments and law enforcement can adequately prepare for these vehicles.

Here’s the link to the statement T4America put out after the markup: https://t4america.org/2017/10/04/t4america-statement-senate-commerce-av-start-markup/.

What Happened at the Markup

There were 28 amendments offered during the Committee markup, a number of which were considered and approved en bloc, the result of an overnight deal. The full list of all approved amendments is available here: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=BA5E2D29-2BF3-4FC7-A79D-58B9E186412C. T4America is analyzing the approved amendments and updated bill text and will continue to provide additional details.

For additional information, please see our previous policy update.

U.S. DOT Releases Proposal to Harmonize Environmental Reviews

At the end of September, US DOT released a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) that will harmonize to a much greater extent the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review for projects that need review from multiple U.S. DOT agencies. If you would like to submit comments to U.S. DOT about this regulation, comments are due to U.S. DOT on or before November 28th.

Under this SNPRM, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will be added to the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) existing rules and regulations for NEPA reviews under part 771 and part 774 of title 23 of the Code of Federal regulations. The SNPRM proposes to make some changes to part 771 and 774 to account for some of the unique characteristics of rail projects.

This proposed change will ensure that a project undergoing NEPA review through multiple U.S. DOT agencies has one set of rules and regulations to follow. Currently, FRA’s NEPA review regulations are different than FHWA’s or FTA’s. Additionally, the proposed rule change ensures that a record of decision related to NEPA from one U.S. DOT agency is accepted by another U.S. DOT agency. Finally, U.S. DOT is proposing to require that the lead U.S. DOT agency designated to conduct the NEPA review must explicitly include in their NEPA coordination plan “participating agencies that are responsible for providing input within their agency’s special expertise or jurisdiction” and reach an agreement between the two agencies on the timeline for that secondary agency to provide their input. This requirement will ensure that necessary agencies have a chance to give their input with respect to the NEPA review but that there is a concrete timeline for that review to take place.

The practical effect is that as a result of this rulemaking, there should be a “single NEPA document that can be used for all Federal permits and reviews for a project to the maximum extent practicable and consistent with Federal law.” That should speed up environmental reviews without harming the intent of NEPA, leading to faster timelines for the construction infrastructure projects without causing environmental harm.

 

 

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of September 15th

Stories You May Have Missed

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week. 

  • “An Infrastructure Deal Should Be Easy, But Isn’t.” (Bloomberg)
  • The House of Representatives passed the package of eight appropriations bill, including the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill, that they began consideration of last week. (The Hill)
  • The Chair of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, John Barrasso, published an op-ed about his plans on infrastructure. (Washington Examiner)
  • Slate covers U.S. DOT’s recently released autonomous vehicle regulation and explains why relying on voluntary safety efforts could be harmful to our communities. (Slate)
  • Wisconsin’s state budget bans cities and towns from using eminent domain to expand or build new sidewalks, bicycle lanes and trails. No such provision is applied to using eminent domain for expanding highways or roads. (Wisconsin State Journal)
  • Politico Europe covers how Amsterdam is leading in transportation innovation and how their embracement of the bicycle is a big reason why. (Politico Europe)
  • Op-Ed Essay: “The end of walking.” (Aeon)

USDOT Seeks Applications for a Ninth Round of TIGER Grants

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you the latest information and developments around federal policy. This information comes straight from the desk of our TIGER expert and T4America Interim Director Beth Osborne.

Dear T4America members,

USDOT is now seeking applications for a ninth round of TIGER grants. USDOT will be awarding a total of $500 million on a competitive basis to transportation projects that “will have a significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area, or a region.” While T4America fights for the continued existence of the TIGER program in 2018 and beyond, we wanted to share four quick things about this ninth round of TIGER grants as you consider applying:

1) There’s no need to rethink your existing projects or recast them for the new administration. It may be a surprise, but USDOT is using the same criteria for this round that they were using under President Obama in 2016. If you have a project you think is competitive or have submitted for recent rounds, don’t recast the project or rework the application expecting the criteria to be drastically different.

The one change was an inclusion of a rural focus, but even that emphasizes the typical goals of TIGER: “improved access to reliable, safe, and affordable transportation for communities in rural areas, such as projects that improve infrastructure condition, address public health and safety, promote regional connectivity, or facilitate economic growth or competitiveness.” And though unspoken in this notice of funding, USDOT and the Trump administration have put a big emphasis on public-private partnerships, which surely would be welcomed in the TIGER program as well.

2) Get your applications in quick. Another reason to avoid trying to recast a project or come up with a brand new project is that applications are due very soon. Unlike past rounds with as much as three months to prepare applications, there’s just a little over a month to submit your applications for consideration by October 16th. Therefore, you should choose a project that has a firm scope, budget and partners in order to get those applications in by the deadline.

3) Broad support will be vital. While the criteria may not have changed, the administration is likely to respond better to projects that have the broadest support from other local, state and federal elected leaders as well as business and civic leaders from you area. If you don’t have your congressional delegation on board, set up meetings as soon as possible to garner their support. Ask them to write supportive letters to USDOT and include your project as a topic of conversation at meetings with USDOT and other administration representatives. Having a broad bench of support from all levels of government for their project can have a positive impact on your project’s likelihood of winning an award. Why should USDOT select a project that’s not even supported by all the stakeholders?

4) Don’t forget, members can tap our expertise. As a benefit of membership, you can get free advice and staff time from T4America to answer questions about your application and help you submit the strongest application possible. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us, which you can do through outreach director Ranata Reeder: ranata.reeder@t4america.org

We wish you all the best of luck. And we hope to have good news about preserving funding for TIGER in 2018, though we’ll be counting on your continued support and advocacy to buttress those efforts in Congress over the next month or two.

Beth Osborne
Interim Director

Recent Congressional Activity Summary-Week of September 8th

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you the latest information and developments around federal policy. This dedication includes in-depth summaries of what is going on in Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT). Check out what you may have missed in our member webinar last week. 

House of Representatives Appropriations

Before this Friday, current appropriations for the Federal Government were scheduled to expire September 30th, which is the end of the 2017 fiscal year.

During this past week, the House of Representatives (House) considered H.R. 3354, a mini-omnibus package consisting of 8 appropriations bills, including the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill. The official title of the omnibus package is the “Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, 2018.”

The four appropriations bills the House considered on Wednesday were 1) Agriculture/Rural Development 2) THUD, 3) Homeland Security and 4) State/Foreign Operations. On Thursday and Friday, the House began consideration of the four remaining appropriations bills which are 5) Interior/Environment, 6) Commerce, Justice, Science, 7) Financial Services and 8) Labor/Health and Human Services.

While a final House vote on the House appropriations package was initially scheduled for Friday, the impending arrival of Hurricane Irma caused the House to delay final consideration and passage of the “Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, 2018” until this upcoming week. This decision was made in order to give the representatives from Florida, and other states likely to be impacted by Irma, time to get home to their constituents.

After the passage of these 8 bills, the House will have passed all 12 of their appropriations bills that fund the activities of the Federal Government. The House passed their first four appropriations bills before August recess; those bills fund the Defense Department, the Department of Veteran Affairs, Legislative Operations, and Energy and Water.

The House Rules Committee, which is the body of the House that determines the rules for debate on a given bill, advanced for floor consideration roughly 40 amendments out of the 90 amendments that were submitted to the Rules Committee for consideration on the House THUD bill. You can access T4America’s tracker of the amendments T4America was watching closely here.

There were two amendments that were made in order that T4America was concerned about. Those two amendments were the Ted Budd amendment (Republican, North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District) and the Mo Brooks amendment (Republican, Alabama’s 5th Congressional District). Representative Budd’s amendment would have: 1) cut $475 million from the Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair grants, which was funding intended in part for the Amtrak gateway project, 2) eliminated the possibility of restoring funding for the TIGER program by applying the savings to deficit reduction and 3) Shifted $400 million in funding from intercity city passenger rail grants to the New Starts Program. Representative Brooks’ amendment would have eliminated federal funding for Amtrak’s national network operations.

Thankfully, the Budd amendment failed to pass by a vote of 159-260 and the Brooks amendment failed to pass by a vote of 128-293.

Debt Ceiling and Continuing Resolution Agreement

On Wednesday, during a meeting with Congressional leaders from both parties, President Trump reached an agreement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi to extend the debt ceiling and government funding by approximately three months until December 8th, as part of a legislative package that provides federal funding for Hurricane Harvey relief and extends the federal flood insurance program temporarily.  The Senate passed this legislative package on Thursday by a vote of 80-17 and the House of Representatives passed it on Friday by a vote of 316-90, sending the legislation to President Trump, which he signed into law on Friday.

Surprisingly, a majority of Republicans in both Houses voted to pass the package even though Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated they strongly disagreed with the deal President Trump struck with Democrats and the influential House Republican Study Committee and other outside conservative groups opposed the deal as well.

Due to the passage of the legislative package, the debt ceiling and appropriations for the Federal government will now end on December 8th. We expect this deadline to lead to intense, high-stakes negotiations to reach a full year appropriations agreement and a long-term extension of the debt ceiling. Additionally, because of the importance of these negotiations, we expect immense pressure to include other items that are unrelated to appropriations but important to one party or the other. For example, early indications are that Democrats will insist on no discretionary funding spending cuts, the inclusion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and health care insurer payments to stabilize ACA as the price for their votes.

Senate Appropriations 

The Senate Appropriations Committee is still in the process of writing and approving their Appropriations bills. So far, the process in the Senate has been bipartisan and they have rejected cuts to non-defense discretionary spending that the House has adopted in their appropriations bills. Due to the spending cuts, the process in the House has been more partisan than the Senate.

There has been no indication from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that there will be Senate floor time to consider individual appropriations bill. At this point, T4America expects that all 12 of the appropriations bills will be rolled up into a giant omnibus by the new deadline of December 8th after negotiations over top line funding levels are completed with the House and between the two parties.

House and Senate Automated Vehicle Legislation

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed by voice vote their bipartisan automated vehicle legislation, H.R. 3388, the Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution Act” or the “SELF DRIVE Act. Members can see our statement about the bill here. The House Energy and Commerce’s subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection (DCCP) has been examining the issue since late 2016 and actively considering legislation since June.

The legislation that passed the House this past Wednesday was led by DCCP subcommittee Chairman Robert Latta (Republican, Ohio 5th Congressional District) and ranking member Jan Schakowsky (Democrat, Illinois 9th Congressional District). The legislation does a number of things including: 1) delineating the federal and state/local roles when it comes to regulating automated vehicles via a pre-emption clause, 2) establishing a specific exemption from federal motor vehicle safety standards to test automated vehicles, 3) raising the number of safety exemptions a manufacturer can get to test vehicles to 100,000 over three years and 4) establishing an automated vehicle advisory committee to advise the Secretary of U.S. DOT on a number of issues related to automated vehicles.

On Friday, the Senate Commerce Committee released a draft of their automated vehicle legislation. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (Republican, South Dakota) and Senator Gary Peters (Democrat, Michigan) have been leading the legislative efforts in the Senate. The Smart Cities team is currently analyzing the Senate bill and will continue to work with Senators to make improvements to the House AV bill.

TIGER Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)

On Thursday, U.S. DOT released the FY 2017 notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for the $500 million TIGER program. U.S. DOT will evaluate projects based on the extent to which they benefit safety, economic competitiveness, state of repair, quality of life and environmental sustainability. These are the same selection criteria used in the TIGER rounds from 2014, 2015 and 2016. However, this Administration will emphasize “improved access to reliable, safe, and affordable transportation for communities in rural areas, such as projects that improve infrastructure condition, address public health and safety, promote regional connectivity, or facilitate economic growth or competitiveness.”

Applications are due by 8:00 p.m. E.D.T. on October 16, 2017 and U.S. DOT is hosting informational webinars on Wednesday September 13th, Tuesday September 18th, and Wednesday September 19th.

President Trump Nominations to U.S. DOT Agencies

On Friday, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Mr. Howard R. Elliot to be administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and Mr. Paul Trombino III to be the administrator of the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA). Mr. Elliot most recently served as the Vice President of Public Safety, Health, Environment and Security for Class 1 Railroad CSX Transportation. Mr Trombino is the former director of the Iowa Department of Transportation from 2011 to 2016 under Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and the former President of the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The U.S. Senate must confirm both nominees.

With these nominees, President Trump has nominated someone to head FHWA, PHMSA, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the Maritime Administration (MARAD) while the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) still await nominees to lead them.

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT of TRANSPORTATION House FY2018 APPROPRIATIONS BILL AMENDMENT SUMMARY

As of September 5th 2017

INTRODUCTION

On Monday July 17th, the House Appropriations Committee marked up and passed the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill for fiscal year (FY) 2018. The House THUD bill would appropriate $17.8 billion in discretionary FY 2018 funding to the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), a $646 million decrease from the FY 2017 funding level. The full text of the House draft bill can be found here.

The THUD bill is part of a package of six appropriations bills that the full House of Representatives will consider together, and we expect that the House will consider this package during the week of September 4th. The House Rules Committee is scheduled on Tuesday September 5th to consider the 89 amendments proposed to the THUD bill and decide what amendments to make “in order” and advance to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

We urge you to call your Representatives and make your voices heard on the below amendments that the House of Representatives may consider in the near future.

TIGER

Current Bill: The House FY 2018 bill eliminates funding for the TIGER program, which was funded at $500 million in FY 2017.

Amendments Proposed:

Maxine Waters (D-CA) Amendment #1: Provides $7.5 billion for the TIGER program.

Maxine Waters (D-CA) Amendment #2: Provides $550 million for the TIGER program, specifically requires the Secretary to award the funds using the 2016 notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) criteria, and requires that the Secretary distributes the grants 225 days after the enactment of the bill.

Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) Amendment: Provides $500 million for the TIGER program.

Rod Blum (R-IA) Amendment: Provides $200 million for the TIGER program and reduces HUD tenant rental assistance by $200 million as an offset.

T4America’s Position: We SUPPORT efforts to fund TIGER because it is a crucial program that gives local governments direct access to federal dollars for innovative projects. TIGER projects are overwhelmingly multimodal and multi-jurisdictional projects – like rail connections to ports, complete streets, passenger rail, and freight improvements – that are often challenging to fund through the underlying formula programs.

However, we OPPOSE paying for a TIGER program by cutting the HUD tenant rental assistance program, which is also a crucial program. There is enough money, as evident by past appropriations bills that fund both, to sufficiently fund these two important programs.

New Starts, Small Starts, Core Capacity (Capital Investment Grant Program)

Current Bill: The House bill allocates $1.75 billion to the Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program, which is $660 million less than the FY 2017 enacted funding level of $2.4 billion. It is also $549 million less than the authorized level for the program in the FAST Act. Of this $1.75 billion, $1.008 billion is set-aside for New Starts projects that have full funding grant agreements (FFGAs), $145.7 million for Core Capacity projects, and $182 million for Small Starts projects.

Of the remaining CIG funding, $400 million would fund “joint Amtrak-public transit projects.” This language indicates that the Subcommittee intends the funding to go to the Gateway project, a rail improvement project in the Northeast Corridor. With all this funding dedicated to Gateway, there would be no remaining funding would be available for any of the CIG projects that anticipate getting an FFGA signed in 2018 or late 2017.

The House bill also includes language directing the USDOT Secretary to “continue to administer the Capital Investment Grant Program in accordance with the procedural and substantive requirements of” the law, including directing the “Secretary to continue to advance eligible projects into project development and engineering in the capital investment grant evaluation.” Basically, when CIG projects become eligible to move along in the pipeline, this language requires the Secretary to advance them. The Committees included this language because the Administration has stated a desire to block funding for any new CIG projects by not advancing or taking in new projects into the program. While this language challenges that approach, under the House bill, the lack of funding available for additional New Starts projects would effectively prevent new projects from moving forward until at least 2019.

Amendments Proposed:

Darren Soto (D-FL) Amendment: Increases the amount of funding for small starts funding by $82 million and decreases funding for intercity passenger rail projects by $82 million as an offset.

Mark Amodei (R-NV) Amendment:  Requires the Secretary of Transportation to continue administering the current Capital Investment Grant (CIG) Program in accordance with current law and requires the USDOT secretary to enter into a grant agreement with any small starts project that has satisfied the current eligibility requirements of the small starts program.

T4America Position: We OPPOSE proposals to offset funding for small starts by taking money from intercity passenger rail funding, which is also important. There is enough money, as evident by past appropriations bills, to sufficiently fund both programs and we should not be cutting funding from one program to fund the other.

We SUPPORT legislative language that increases the likelihood that the CIG program will continue operating as it should and also moves future small starts projects forward by ensuring these projects get grant agreements when they are ready.

Amtrak, CRISI, State of Good Repair, and REG

Current Bill: The House FY 2018 bill provides $1.4 billion for Amtrak. Of this, $1.1 billion is reserved for the National Network, which is consistent with the FAST Act authorized amount, and $328 million for the Northeast Corridor (NEC), which is a decrease from the $515 million authorized amount in the FAST Act.

The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program is funded under the House bill at $25 million, a decrease from the $230 million authorized under the FAST Act and less than half of the $68 million that the program received in FY 2017. The draft bill does not provide funding for the Restoration and Enhancement Grants (REG) program, which authorized at $20 million under the FAST Act and funded at $5 million in FY 2017..

The House FY 2018 bill also provides $500 million for Federal State Partnership State of Good Repair grants, significantly above the $175 million authorized for FY 2018. In spending this funding, the bill directs USDOT to “first give preference to eligible projects for which the environmental impact statement required under the National Environmental Policy Act and design work is already complete at the time of the grant application review, or to projects that address major critical assets which have conditions that pose a substantial risk now or in the future to the reliability of train service.” This language indicates that funding would be directed to the Gateway’s Portal North Bridge and Hudson River Tunnel projects. Overall, the Gateway project could receive $900 million in grant funding under the bill – about one sixth of the $5.4 billion in discretionary appropriations for non-aviation programs.

Amendments Proposed:
Mo Brooks (R-AL) Amendment #1: Eliminates funding for Amtrak’s National Network only.

Mo Brooks (R-AL) amendment #2: Eliminates both the funding for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and Amtrak’s National Network.

Mo Brooks (R-AL) Amendment #3: Eliminates funding for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor only

Jim Himes (D-CT) Amendment:  Increases funding for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor account by $30 million and decreases essential air service funding by $30 million as an offset.

Ted Budd (R-NC) Amendment: Eliminates the $900 million allocation for the Amtrak gateway program, increases funding for national New Starts Projects by $400 million and applies savings from the elimination of the TIGER Grant program to deficit reduction.

T4America’s Position: We STRONGLY OPPOSE the elimination of funding for Amtrak, which is crucial to the economy vitality of our nation and communities across our country. The National Network provides mobility options for and acts as an economic catalyst to small and rural communities across the country. For many residents in these communities, the Amtrak connection is their primary way of traveling around the country, especially in areas that are losing Essential Air Service. Similarly, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is the primary travel option for millions of people traveling the congested Northeast Corridor every year. Not only does it take cars off our congested roadways, benefiting train and road users alike, but the Northeast Corridor is a huge economic driver for communities located along the Corridor. Cutting funding for Amtrak’s National Network and Northeast Corridor would decrease our nation’s prosperity, harm the economic vitality of communities that Amtrak serves, and greatly lower the amount of personal mobility and freedom that people that use Amtrak currently have. The House of Representatives rightly voted down these amendments two years ago and should do so again.

We also OPPOSE funding for the Northeast Corridor by taking funding from the Essential Air Service program. While Northeast corridor rail funding is important to the urban communities along the corridor and our nation’s economy as a whole, the essential air service program is important to many rural communities that would not have airline service otherwise. Our transportation system should and can meet the needs of both our urban and rural communities and this amendment would needlessly cause a divide between urban and rural communities when we need all of our communities united in a push for greater infrastructure funding overall.

Finally, we OPPOSE amendments that pit one infrastructure priority against another one.

Other Amendments To Watch:

Kevin Brady (R-TX) Amendment: Prohibits federal funding, including a grant or loan agreement, for the development or construction of high-speed rail, with non-interoperable technology, in the State of Texas.

T4America’s Position: We OPPOSE efforts to limit the ability of the federal government to advance high-speed rail in Texas. Texas currently has an exciting privately led effort underway to build high-speed rail between Houston and Dallas. While the private group leading the effort has indicated they don’t have plans to seek financial support from the federal government, we shouldn’t prohibit the federal government from providing financial support if the need arise and there are benefits to providing that financial support. The federal government provides billions of dollars in funding to other modes of transportation, including highway and other transit projects, so the federal government shouldn’t be prohibited from providing funding in this case if it becomes a good idea to do so.

Jamie Herrera-Butler (R-WA) Amendment: Prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or collect tolls on Interstate 5 or Interstate 205 in the state of Washington or Oregon.

T4America’s Position: We OPPOSE efforts to limit the ability of Washington State or Oregon to use tolling as a financing option for infrastructure projects. Congress hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1991 and therefore there is a national funding crisis for transportation. Because Congress has repeatedly been unable to step up to the plate, States increasingly have taking the lead and either raised their gas tax or found other innovative solutions, including tolling, to raise revenue to fund transportation and other infrastructure projects. Congress shouldn’t prohibit states from taking much needed steps, including tolling, to solve a problem that Congress has so far refused to solve.

Al Green (D-TX) Amendment: Restores $250,000 in funding for the Department of Transportation Office of Civil Rights and reduces USDOT salary and expenses by $250,000 as an offset

T4America’s Position: We SUPPORT efforts to maintain funding for the Office of Civil Rights within USDOT. Unfortunately even today, there are still many equity issues in the way we fund transportation projects and the individual projects and modes of transportation that we do ultimately fund. The Office of Civil Rights is crucial in our effort to ensure that we solve the equity challenges and gaps that still exist in our transportation system today.

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of August 25th

Stories You May Have Missed

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week.

  • President Trump has dropped plans to form an infrastructure council that would have advised him on the infrastructure plan his administration is putting together. (Bloomberg)
  • “The Trump administration is seeking input from rural communities around the U.S. as it assembles a $1 trillion infrastructure package.” (The Hill)
  • The U.S. Senators from New Jersey and New York have called on U.S. DOT to revisit their plan to withdraw a proposed regulation to test rail and truck operators for sleep apnea. (Progressive Railroading)
  • Our partners, the National Complete Streets Coalition (NSCS), did a question and answer session with a board member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on their new report documenting that 31% of all deaths on our roadways are due to speeding. The report provides recommendations on how to reduce deaths. (NCSC, Streetsblog)
  • Asset Recycling an Alternative Approach to P3s. Learn more about the practice of selling or leasing existing, publicly-owned infrastructure and using the proceeds to pay for building or maintaining other infrastructure. Read T4A member summary here.

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of August 4th

Stories You May Have Missed

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week. 

  • “Infrastructure borrowing drops as U.S. states await” details on President Trump’s infrastructure plan. (Reuters)
  • Amid growing frustration with the lack of details from the Trump administration about their infrastructure plan, Congressional committees are moving ahead gathering input and drafting their own plans. (The Hill)
  • The Atlantic Magazine dives into why Congressional Republicans are having trouble passing a Fiscal-Year 2018 budget resolution and what it means for their legislative agenda, including tax reform. (The Atlantic)
  • The Federal Rail Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration have withdrawn a proposed regulation from the Obama administration that would have required railroad and truck companies to test employees for sleep apnea. (USA Today)
  • Senators from New York and New Jersey have prevented confirmation of certain U.S. DOT nominees because of a dispute with U.S. DOT on the amount of federal involvement in the Gateway project that would build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York City. (Cetus/Wall Street Journal)
  • U.S. DOT has announced the winners $79 million in FASTLANE/INFRA grant awards for small projects. Awards for large projects under FASTLANE/INFRA have been delayed until the fall and U.S. DOT is requiring entities seeking awards for large projects to resubmit their application. (Progressive Railroading)

Summary of FY2018 Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development “THUD” Appropriations Bill

On Thursday July 27, the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the fiscal year 2018 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is funded at $19.47 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2018. This is $978 million above the FY2017 enacted level. The Committee’s priority is placed on programs that improve the safety, reliability, and efficiency of the transportation system.

The Senate Appropriations Committee proposes to increase funding for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program after the President and the House Appropriations Committee proposed to eliminate it. Instead, the bill increases funding to $550 million – $50 million more than the FY 2017 funding level. The bill also reserves 30 percent of the awards for rural areas.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Susan M. Collins in her opening statement at the markup highlighted that TIGER is a proven program that funds competitive grants for state and local road, transit, port, and railroad construction projects. “Last year, 585 applicants from all 50 states and territories requested nearly $9.3 billion in assistance, demonstrating the need for and popularity of this program. Only 40 of these applications could be funded,” said Chairman Collins.

The committee expressed strong support for the TIGER program in the report that accompanies the appropriations bill and required the Trump Administration to apply the criteria used in FY2016 to the FY2018 round of TIGER.

The Senate bill allocates a total of $2.133 billion for the transit Capital Investment Grant (CIG) Program, which is $279.7 million less than the FY 2017 enacted level and $900.9 million more than the President’s budget request. Of the $2.133 billion, 1.008 billion is set aside for New Starts projects that already have full funding grant agreements (FFGAs), and $454 million is reserved for new New Starts FFGAs. Additionally, $149.9 million is reserved to complete funding for previously funded Small Starts projects that do not have signed agreements, and $168.4 million is reserved for new Small Starts projects. Finally, $200 million is set aside to cover the cost of the two existing Core Capacity projects, and $145.7 million is reserved for new Core Capacity FFGAs.

The Senate Bill includes language directing the USDOT Secretary to “continue to administer the Capital Investment Grant Program in accordance with the procedural and substantive requirements of” the law, including directing the “Secretary to continue to advance eligible projects into project development and engineering in the capital investment grant evaluation.” Basically, when CIG projects become eligible to move along in the pipeline, this language requires the Secretary to advance them. The Committee included this language in response to the Administration’s budget proposal that stated it would only fund transit projects with an existing FFGA.

The appropriations bill also fully funds the highway, transit, and safety programs authorized by the FAST Act and funded through the Highway Trust Fund. The bill includes $45 billion for the Federal-aid Highways Program. In addition, the bill continues to grant State Departments of Transportation permission to repurpose old, unused earmarks for important infrastructure projects.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is funded at $1.97 billion, $122 million above the FY 2017 enacted level. The bill provisions include $358.4 million for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and $1.242 billion for Amtrak’s National Network, which is enough funding to continue service for all current routes. The bill also provides $250.1 million to fund FRA’s safety, operations, research and development activities. The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement Grants Program is funded at $92.5 million, of which $35.5 million is for initiation or restoration of passenger rail. The Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair Grants program is funded at $26 million and the Restoration and Enhancement Grants program is funded at $5 million.

Additionally, the committee made a major statement to the administration about policy in its appropriations report (page 8 and 9) and the importance of stable and robust transportation funding.

“The President’s request includes $200,000,000,000 to leverage $1,000,000,000,000 in new investment in the Nation’s physical infrastructure. This proposal is expected to include policy, regulatory, and legislative proposals, ranging from changes to existing programs, to the creation of new programs and initiatives to reshape how the Federal government invests, permits, and collaborates on infrastructure. To date, no such proposal has been submitted to the Committee. While the Committee fully supports additional spending for our Nation’s infrastructure, it strongly disagrees with the Administration’s assertion that providing Federal dollars for infrastructure has created, ‘an unhealthy dynamic in which State and local governments delay projects in the hope of receiving Federal funds.’”

“Without Federal investment in infrastructure, particularly in our nation’s highway network and transit systems, the ability to move freight across the country and the free movement of people between States with vastly differing abilities to fund infrastructure would be compromised. The Committee is also concerned that the Administration does not realize that State and local governments, through the statewide transportation improvement program planning process, already determine the “right level–and type–of infrastructure investment needed for their communities.” More troubling is the fact that the budget request assumes that after fiscal year 2020, highway trust fund outlays will be at levels that are supported with existing tax receipts, resulting in an outlay reduction of $95,000,000,000 over fiscal years 2021-2027. The Administration’s approach is dangerously close to support for devolution of Federal funding provided by the Highway Trust Fund, an idea the Committee strongly opposes.”

Overall, the bill protects funding for the programs that T4America believes are crucial to our transportation system like TIGER and the Capital Investment Grant Program. This bill is a great step to ensure that key infrastructure and transit programs will be funded accordingly, and will continue to serve the nations most vulnerable persons.

U.S. DEPARTMENT of TRANSPORTATION FY2018 APPROPRIATIONS BILL SUMMARY

As introduced on July 10, 2017

Late on July 10, the House Appropriations subcommittee released a draft bill to fund transportation and housing programs for fiscal year (FY) 2018. The bill would appropriate $56.5 billion in discretionary spending, which is $1.1 billion below FY 2017. USDOT would receive $17.8 billion in discretionary FY2018 funding, a $646 million decrease from FY2017. The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to markup the draft bill on Monday, July 17.

The full text of the draft bill can be found here. A summary of the appropriations bill can be found on the House Appropriations Committee page here.

BACKGROUND

Congress must take action on addressing the budget caps enforced through the Budget Control Act (BCA), which passed into law in 2011. The Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has hinted that the Treasury Department could run out of room to borrow under the current debt limit as early as September. While Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has not given an estimate of exactly when the Treasury was most likely to hit the debt limit, October or November is likely.

Despite the absence of a budget deal, the House Appropriations Committee has come out with interim 302(b) allocations, which set the spending level for each appropriations subcommittee. Under this document, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) subcommittee has a FY 2018 funding cap of $56.5 billion, a $1.1 billion decrease from FY 2017 funding level. See interim sub-allocations document here.

TIGER

The House FY2018 bill eliminates funding for the TIGER program. In past appropriations, the House has also used this same strategy – zero out the program and rely on the Senate to maintain funding for TIGER. Then when they conference the House and Senate bills into one bill, the House pushes the Senate to cut funding from another program in order to maintain TIGER funding.

It is unclear the extent to which the Senate will continue to carry the weight of supporting the program moving forward.

New Starts, Small Starts, Core Capacity (Capital Investment Grant Program)

The House bill allocates $1.75 billion to the Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program, which is a 27 percent cut from, or $660 million less than, the FY 2017 funding level of $2.4 billion. It is also $549 million less that the authorized level for the program in the FAST Act. Of this, $1.008 billion is set-aside for New Starts projects that have full funding grant agreements (FFGAs), $145.7 million for Core Capacity projects, and $182 million for Small Starts.

Of the remaining CIG funding, $400 million would fund “joint Amtrak-public transit projects.” This language provides a clue that the Subcommittee intends the funding to go to the Gateway project, a rail improvement project in the Northeast Corridor. With all this funding dedicated to Gateway, there would be no remaining funding would be available for any of the CIG projects that anticipate getting an FFGA signed in 2018 or late 2017.

While the House leaders included language directing the USDOT Secretary to “continue to administer the Capital Investment Grant Program in accordance with the procedural and substantive requirements of” the law, the lack of funding available to do that would effectively prevent projects from moving forward until at least 2019.

Amtrak, CRISI, State of Good Repair, and REG

The FY2018 draft bill provides $1.4 billion for Amtrak. Of this, $1.1 billion is for the National Network, which is consistent with the FAST Act authorized amount, and $328 million for the Northeast Corridor (NEC), which is a decrease from the $515 million authorized amount in the FAST Act.

The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program is funded at $25 million, a decrease from the $230 million authorized under the FAST Act and less than half of the $68 million that the program received in FY 2017.

The draft bill does not provide funding for the Restoration and Enhancement Grants (REG) program, which authorized at $20 million under the FAST Act.

The FY2018 bill provides $500 million for Federal State Partnership State of Good Repair grants, significantly above the $175 million authorized for FY 2018. In spending this funding, the bill directs USDOT to “first give preference to eligible projects for which the environmental impact statement required under the National Environmental Policy Act and design work is already complete at the time of the grant application review, or to projects that address major critical assets which have conditions that pose a substantial risk now or in the future to the reliability of train service.” This language indicates that funding would be directed to the Gateway’s Portal North Bridge and Hudson River Tunnel projects. Overall, the Gateway project could receive $900 million in grant funding under the bill – about one sixth of the $5.4 billion in discretionary appropriations for non-aviation programs.

Analysis

The House draft THUD appropriations bill does not have as drastic funding cuts as those proposed by the Administration (see T4America summary of the Administration’s FY 2018 budget proposal here). However, it still represents significant cuts from current funding levels and would have far-reaching impacts for communities’ transportation and housing programs.

On July 11, the House Appropriations THUD Subcommittee held a short mark-up and passed the draft bill without any amendments. The bill is scheduled for consideration by the full House Appropriations Committee on July 17 and may move forward to the House floor. However, Congress is not expected to complete any of the FY 2018 appropriation bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1. T4America encourages communities to reach out to their representatives to ensure funding is maintained for the key programs your community relies on.

Unpacking the final suite of new USDOT performance measures [video]

The new requirements released last week by USDOT for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion were just part of a larger package of all-new performance measures. Catch up on what you need to know about them with our detailed webinar unpacking all of it.

Many thanks to our Beth Osborne for sharing her knowledge and wisdom about performance measures with us on this helpful session. FHWA was unable to participate due to the regulatory freeze now in place preventing federal agencies from communicating further about any new regulations in process or not yet completely finalized, but we were able to roll on ahead. (2:20)

The 2012 transportation law (MAP-21) required transportation agencies to begin using a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent. USDOT’s final rule for measuring traffic congestion was just one part of a much larger package of new performance measures, including measures for safety, the state of repair, congestion, air emissions and other aspects of our transportation system. (4:00)

On this webinar, we walked through the last of three final rules that cover road, bridge and pavement condition, and overall system performance. We discussed what’s missing in the new measures (8:00), what changes we asked for along the way (10:30), what comprises the final package of rules (15:20), the changes made to the final package (18:05), the dates that states and metro areas will need to be aware of over the next year (18:50), some other helpful resources from T4America and others (20:20) and answered a handful of really smart questions from those who participated (24:00).

More about performance measures

New T4A report out today: Measuring What We Value

Learn more about USDOT’s final congestion rule and the rest of the final performance measures [webinar]

The new requirements released last week by USDOT for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion were just part of a larger package of new performance measures. Join us next week to unpack the congestion rule and the rest of the suite of new measures. 

Updated 1/26/17: Thanks to everyone who was able to join us on the webinar. Here’s the archived recording if you missed it or want to revisit. -Ed.

The 2012 transportation law (MAP-21) required transportation agencies to begin using a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent. And it was indeed big news last week when USDOT — responding to thousands of your comments we submitted — backed away from most of the outdated measures of traffic congestion that were proposed. But this was just one part of a much larger package of new performance measures and with last week’s release, USDOT has now finalized all of the new measures for safety, the state of repair, congestion, air emissions and other aspects of our transportation system.

Join us next Tuesday on January 24th at 10:00 a.m. EST as we walk through the second two (of three total) final rules that cover road, bridge and pavement condition, and overall system performance (the latter is what includes the traffic congestion measures.)

T4America experts will be on hand to unpack these final rules, discuss what states and metro areas need to know about this crucial first step toward more performance-based and data-driven decision-making when it comes to transportation investments.

We’ll also be announcing a new opportunity for technical assistance on performance measures, as well as some survey results on the state of the practice at metropolitan planning organizations across the country. Be the first to hear about both.

More about performance measures

New T4A report out today: Measuring What We Value

How do we justify transportation expenditures? To many people, the perception is that project decisions are made in a murky, mysterious process, or, even worse, through a political process where only the projects with the most connections get funded. Further, it is not clear to the average person what all the spending gets them. With public confidence in government at low levels, it’s more important than ever to quantify the public benefits of transportation investment and let voters know what their money is going to buy — especially when attempts are being made to raise new money for transportation to fill the gap.

Transitioning to a more performance-based system of transportation investment was one of the key reforms of MAP-21 and these newly finalized measures could represent the beginning of a sea change in how funding decisions are made and our transportation system performs.

Read our 2015 report to learn more about performance measures

USDOT rewrites congestion rule in response to outpouring of feedback

At long last, USDOT has finalized new requirements for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion and in the final rule — responding to the outpouring of comments they received — they backed away from most of the outdated measures of congestion that were proposed.

Updated 1/26/17: See the bottom of this post for a video of our webinar explaining this rule and the rest of the final package of performance measures. – Ed.

Wait, what congestion measures? First, let’s take a moment to catch up on what’s happening here, since it’s been months since this was in the news.

For two years, USDOT has been working to establish a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent and hold states and metro areas accountable for making progress on important goals, including how states and cities would have to measure (and address) traffic congestion. (Why does how we measure congestion matter? Read some background here.)

As first written, USDOT’s proposed measures would, as we said back in early 2016, “induce sprawl, harm the economic potential of our main streets by treating them like highways, punish cities investing in public transportation, completely ignore people walking, biking, carpooling or telecommuting, and push local communities of all sizes to waste billions of dollars in vain attempts to build their way out of congestion.”

So back in August 2016, we delivered letters from nearly 5,000 individuals and 150 organizations — including dozens of local chambers of commerce and elected officials — opposing USDOT’s flawed proposal and urging them to rethink their approach.

Here’s what 5,000 letters looks like next to a terrific book about Complete Streets for scale purposes since USDOT allows digital submissions.

We’ll be reviewing this newly-released 300-plus page measure in closer detail in the days to come, but our first take upon reviewing it is that FHWA heard the extensive feedback on a complex rule and responded positively to most of the requests that we made.

“Tens of thousands of commenters, through campaigns from T4America, the American Heart Association, and others, raised concerns about the vehicle-focused nature of the eight measures proposed in the NPRM,” FHWA wrote in their comments accompanying the new rule.

The changes are complicated and difficult to quickly enumerate, but four changes are worth highlighting quickly here.

First, we complained that FHWA’s singular focus on delay “paints an incredibly one-dimensional picture of congestion. Focusing on average delay by simply measuring the difference between rush hour speeds compared to free-flow 3 a.m. traffic fails to count everyone else commuting by other modes, rewards places with fast travel speeds at the expense of places with shorter commutes and less time spent behind the wheel overall, and completely ignores how many people are actually moving through the corridor.”

In response, FHWA dumped this peak travel reliability measure, more commonly expressed through the Texas Transportation Institute’s travel time index (TTI), which mostly is a measure of the difference between speeds in the middle of the night and rush hour. This peak travel time measure is gone.

Secondly, they added a “person-hours” measure of delay, which will consider how many people are using the road instead of just how many vehicles are delayed. This was one of our primary critiques of the draft rule, because simple vehicle delay is blind to how many people a corridor is actually moving — it only looks at the number of vehicles. If one corridor moves three times the amount of people as another corridor because of a carpool requirement or a lane dedicated to high-capacity transit, it shouldn’t score the same for congestion just because the travel speed or average delay is the same.

This is a significant change. This means that a congested road that’s full of single-occupant vehicles will never be viewed the same as a corridor that is congested but also multimodal or otherwise carrying more people.

Thirdly, and responding clearly to feedback, FHWA added a new carbon dioxide emissions measure to track the percent change in CO2 emissions generated by on-road mobile sources on most bigger roadways. (Specifically roads on the National Highway System, which, as this graphic reminds us, aren’t always just highways.)

Fourth and lastly, on the topic of multimodal corridors, “…after reviewing these comments, FHWA has decided to include a new multimodal measure — the portion of non-single occupant vehicle travel.”

How did FHWA explain their reasoning to add a measure requiring states and metro areas to set a target for moving people via modes other than single-occupant vehicles?

“Because transportation in urbanized areas is inherently multimodal, it is important to account as much as possible for the options that are available to travelers in those urbanized areas.”

How we measure congestion does matter. It is important to look at congestion and its connection to economic activity. This post from a department within FHWA on Twitter today highlights this connection and it isn’t what most elected leaders and transportation officials believe. Congestion is bad for economic success, right?

Especially after the collapse of the recent Bakken-fueled oil boom of the last few years there, do you think that North Dakota’s leaders would trade ten minutes on their average commute times for ten percent of New York State’s GDP? Does the lack of congestion equal economic success?

This final performance measure from FHWA and USDOT would suggest otherwise.  They are to be applauded, and it wouldn’t have happened without your support. By FHWA’s own admission, the letters that you and thousands of others sent were responsible for pushing FHWA on these critical points.

Stay tuned for more, and sign up for email from T4America to get this kind of news straight to your inbox, including news about a detailed webinar about the new rules happening soon.

Updated: Here’s the video of our webinar about the new performance measures. Read this post for more information.

Big questions largely avoided during the first confirmation hearing for Trump’s Secretary of Transportation nominee

Trump’s appointee to serve as Secretary of Transportation had a confirmation hearing yesterday before a Senate committee, and though she was light on specifics, there were some illuminating questions from Senators and answers from Secretary-designate Elaine Chao.

In a confirmation hearing largely overshadowed by the higher-profile (and more controversial) hearings going on at the same time for Secretary of State and Attorney General, Elaine Chao answered questions from senators on the Commerce Committee yesterday morning and provided at least a glimpse into what can be expected at USDOT under the incoming administration.

She filed a short opening statement that was light on specifics, but emphasized the need to increase private investment in infrastructure, to streamline the process of building transportation projects, and to help the federal government be a partner in the innovation of emerging technologies that is happening on the ground in cities — which is currently “led by the private sector,” she said.

In that statement, she identified how our transportation investments have helped us be competitive, but noted that those “gains are jeopardized by infrastructure in need of repair, the specter of rising highway fatalities, growing congestion, and by a failure to keep pace with emerging technologies.”

While highway fatalities are indeed increasing, pedestrian fatalities are also on the rise after years of decline. Following the release of Dangerous by Design 2016, which highlights the 46,000-plus people who were killed while walking from 2005-2014, T4America sent a letter signed by hundreds of supporters to the committee members asking them to press her on this safety issue.

Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii took up the cause during the hearing, noting that we have a “serious safety crisis” overall, with more than 35,000 people dying on our roads in 2015 — “the largest increase in years;” “10 percent of those [deaths] were pedestrians,” he added, noting that the problem is particularly bad in Hawaii.

But “these [pedestrian fatalities] are preventable through best practices,” Senator Schatz added, noting how better street designs — and direct guidance from the federal government — can help states and MPOs build streets that are safer for everyone. He asked about her commitment to work on a safe streets agenda, to which Ms. Chao answered that she looked forward to working with him on the issue.

On the TIGER competitive grant program that is increasingly one of the best (or only) sources of funding for smart, local projects, Chao made no promises about overall funding for the program but noted that it was “one area of great agreement,” and that she was “impressed with how many members like it.”

On the elephant in the room, long-term funding for transportation, there was the typical rhetoric and few details — perhaps to be expected by any nominee at this point.

“President-elect Trump’s vision for an infrastructure proposal is ambitious, futuristic and comprehensive,” she said, noting that private investment and public-private partnerships need to be part of the mix. She was supportive of the TIFIA financing program (“It’s an important and valuable source of funding…we need more innovative sources like it.”) And she’s aware of the long-term structural problems with the gas tax, such as improved vehicle efficiency, and vehicle-miles-traveled — though now increasing after ten years of no growth — failing to come close to any of the federal projections for huge long-term growth.

She did answer a pointed question from Senator Cory Booker, who asked — financing and private investment aside — if she and President-elect Trump are in favor of increasing direct federal investment in transportation. Chao said, “I believe the answer is yes.”

And though it would be a question for Congress rather than the USDOT, she didn’t rule out Senator Mike Lee’s plan to essentially kill the federal transportation program, cut the federal gas tax down to a few pennies and let states decide whether or not (and how) they want to invest in transportation. “I’m open to all ideas,” she said, although this specific idea stands in stark opposition to the notion of increasing direct federal investment in infrastructure.

There was no vote on her confirmation today, and there could be another hearing for further questions. But evidence thus far suggests that Democrats are unlikely to oppose her nomination and she should be confirmed in a matter of time. As for what USDOT will look like under a Secretary Chao, there were a few hints of the approach today, but the proof will be in the pudding in 2017.

Watch the full video of the hearing above.

U.S. DOT proposes updates to NEPA implementing procedures

On December 20, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) released a proposed order, DOT Order 5610.1D, that would update the department’s procedures for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). USDOT has not updated its current procedures since 1985.

Under the proposed order, USDOT would incorporate various procedures, rules, and approaches for implementing and streamlining NEPA that came out of federal transportation authorization legislation, including most recently the FAST Act. A cursory look of the proposed order suggests that the order does not propose any major changes, but rather formalizes current practices.

T4America encourages members to review the proposed order here. The comment period closes on January 10, 2017. A few state transportation agencies have filed requests to extend the comment period.

Transportation for America’s statement on the selection of Elaine Chao to serve as Secretary of Transportation

press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC — On the confirmed reports of President-elect Trump’s selection of Elaine Chao to serve as the Secretary of Transportation in his cabinet, James Corless, Director of T4America, released this short statement:

Transportation for America looks forward to working with Elaine Chao as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. While information is scarce on her personal viewpoints on transportation policy, we believe that transportation investment is an issue that can help unite us — efficiently connecting all of us to the places we need to go each day.

Chao is certainly a capable manager for a large federal agency like USDOT, having led the Department of Labor for the entirety of President George W. Bush’s two terms, as well as a stint as deputy secretary at USDOT under his father, President George H.W. Bush.

While federal policy governing the majority of transportation spending has been determined for the next four years by Congress’s FAST Act transportation authorization passed in 2015, President-elect Trump has stated that infrastructure will be a priority of his first 100 days in office, and the incoming secretary will surely have a sizable impact on any possible infrastructure package in 2017.

It’s crucial that Elaine Chao and USDOT exert their influence to ensure that any new money flowing into infrastructure is directed to the projects that can bring the greatest return on investment, boost our local economies, and continue building a transportation system that can provide access to opportunity for all Americans.

We look forward to working with her and continuing our strong relationship with USDOT.

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

USDOT faces widespread opposition to proposed congestion rule

Nearly 5,000 individuals and 150 organizations — including dozens of local chambers of commerce and elected officials — joined with T4America to oppose USDOT’s flawed proposal for measuring traffic congestion and urge them to rethink their approach.

Here's what 5,000 pieces of paper looks like next to a terrific book about Complete Streets for scale purposes. We didn't have to waste 5,000 pages for your letters since USDOT allows digital submissions.

Since USDOT allows digital submissions and we didn’t have to waste any paper for your letters, here’s what 5,000 pieces of copy paper looks like next to a terrific book about Complete Streets for scale.

Almost 5,000 of our supporters sent letters urging USDOT to rewrite the department’s new requirements for measuring (and addressing) congestion — requirements that, as written, would induce sprawl, harm the economic potential of our main streets by treating them like highways, punish cities investing in public transportation, completely ignore people walking, biking, carpooling or telecommuting, and push local communities of all sizes to waste billions of dollars in vain attempts to build their way out of congestion.

“There’s a direct connection between how we measure congestion and the ‘solutions’ that we invest in,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America, in our full press release yesterday. “And by prioritizing vehicles over people and completely ignoring a diversity of transportation options, this proposed rule would fail the communities that our transportation investments are intended to serve.”

USDOT has been undertaking a welcome and necessary shift toward measuring what our federal transportation spending actually accomplishes by establishing a new system of performance measures to hold states and metro areas accountable for making progress on important goals.

We know these rules sometimes seem arcane or obtuse, so we explained a real-world example of how they could play out in this opinion piece for The Hill last week:

The measure would fail to reward places that use existing streets more efficiently — particularly in urban areas where space is at a premium.

Take for example the 16th Street NW corridor in Washington DC. The street is often clogged at rush hour but, since it’s in the middle of the city, it can’t be widened. So how should transportation engineers address the congestion? One solution would be to add priority lanes for buses, which already carry more than half of all rush hour trips along the corridor. Prioritizing 50-passenger buses over single-occupancy cars would vastly increase the carrying capacity of the street and allow it to move even more people per hour than it does today. But under the Department of Transportation’s proposed rule, if this strategy succeeded in moving more people but had an even slightly negative impact on average travel speed per vehicle, it would get low marks.

DC Congestion Comparison 2

Part of the 16th street corridor in question, referenced in the above op-ed, is at right in the above graphic. During rush hour, buses carry more than half of all trips taken on this corridor.

That’s just one example, but in case you haven’t been following along recently, we’ve outlined the scope of the rule’s problems several times over the 120 days of the comment period, which closed on Saturday, August 20th.

In addition to the nearly 5,000 letters we delivered to USDOT last Friday night, an impressive and diverse coalition of business groups, local elected leaders and national and local organizations also signed a single letter proposing concrete ways for USDOT to fix the rule. Over the last four months, we convened more than 30 local elected officials, state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and transit agencies, national and state trade groups and advocacy organizations to develop a better measure to recommend to USDOT that has buy-in from practitioners on the ground.

The first recommendation in that letter is a simple one that gets to the heart of what needs to be fixed: “Travel time/delay is felt by the people who travel, not by the vehicle, and U.S. DOT should propose a measure that focuses on people and not vehicles.”

21 chambers of commerce from across the country also signed a separate letter signaling their concerns about a measure that would punish cities and regions investing in public transportation and walkable downtowns to stay economically competitive:

The proposed rule focuses on vehicle speeds only, which discourages local decision-makers from investing in transit, pedestrian, and bicycle infrastructure and impedes progress towards the walkable, accessible, and vibrant business districts that we are striving to achieve. A comprehensive mix of strategic transportation investments is necessary to allow American businesses to remain competitive. Hundreds of companies across the United States are moving to and investing in walkable downtown and business district locations. Companies want their location to be accessible by a range of transportation options in order to attract and retain talented workers. Performance measures included in this rule should account for all modes of transportation to both capture and encourage important investments that support resilient, strong local economies.

USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx has embarked upon an ambitious effort to repair the damage of poorly-planned highway projects that divide communities and ensure that future transportation investments do a better job of connecting all people to economic opportunity — especially low-income communities and communities of color. Advancing a proposal that would prioritize high traffic speeds at all times of day on all types of roads would undermine the Secretary’s own efforts.

We are hopeful that USDOT will heed this call and change the rule to count everyone and support the local, metro and state leaders planning ambitious, smart transportation investments to better connect all people to opportunity.

Proposed federal rules for measuring and addressing congestion in states and metro areas generate widespread opposition

press release

Nearly 150 organizations — including dozens of local chambers of commerce and elected officials — and nearly 5,000 individuals spoke out in opposition to a flawed proposal from USDOT.

WASHINGTON, DC — Led by Smart Growth America (SGA), Transportation for America and the National Complete Streets Coalition, a broad coalition of business groups, local elected leaders, national and local organizations and thousands of individuals filed formal comments last week urging USDOT not to incentivize transportation projects that would punish cities investing in public transportation, treat main streets like highways, ignore the needs of people walking or biking, and push local communities of all sizes to waste billions of dollars in vain attempts to build their way out of congestion.

The comments were in response to a proposal from USDOT that will, when finalized in 2017, govern how states and metro areas are required to measure and address congestion and other metrics like freight movement and emissions, on a large share of our nation’s roadways. The 120-day public comment period closed on Saturday, August 20th. (The letter from the full coalition is here, a separate letter signed by 21 chambers of commerce is here, and the comments submitted by individuals are here.)

For two years, as required by 2012’s MAP-21 transportation authorization, USDOT has been working to establish a new system of performance measures to help govern how federal dollars are spent and hold states and metro areas accountable for making progress on important goals — a welcome shift toward measuring what our transportation spending actually accomplishes.

But this proposed rule would lead to negative outcomes in communities and billions of dollars wasted due to its singular focus on moving single-occupancy vehicles as fast as possible while failing to count the benefits of carpooling, public transportation, telecommuting, bicycling or walking. (T4America outlined the problems with the rule in detail here.)

“There’s a direct connection between how we decide to measure congestion and the ‘solutions’ that we decide to invest in,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America (T4America). “And by prioritizing vehicles over people and completely ignoring a diversity of transportation options, this proposed rule would fail the communities that our transportation investments are intended to serve.”

To develop a stronger alternative measure to submit to USDOT, SGA convened a working group of more than 30 local elected officials, state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and transit agencies, and national and state trade groups and advocacy organizations.

This work was supported by numerous state DOTs, MPOs, transit agencies and advocacy organizations; Oregon Metro (Portland) and Indy MPO; Trimet; Metro Atlanta Chamber and Indy Chamber; and the Transportation Equity Caucus, League of American Bicyclists, Safe Routes to School National Partnership, People for Bikes, PolicyLink, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Center for Neighborhood Technology and many others.

The coalition specifically requested the following changes to the final rule:

  • Focus on the movement of people instead of only vehicles — the rule would treat a bus full of commuters the same as a single vehicle carrying one person;
  • Remove the duplicative vehicle speed measures that provide marginal benefit;
  • Provide a timeline for USDOT to implement an accessibility performance measure;
  • Measure greenhouse gases (GHG) from the transportation sector, which represents the largest GHG emissions sector in the country; and
  • Improve data sets to incorporate accurate roadway volumes, strategies to develop and implement safe and accessible multimodal networks, accessibility, and trip origin and destination.

In addition, a congressional delegation led by Senators Carper and Menendez in the Senate and Representative Blumenauer in the House also sent letters to USDOT Secretary Foxx requesting that USDOT assess the movement of people, rather than vehicles, as a better measure of congestion and also reward the improvements that can come from transit, toll lanes, or encouraging travelers to choose other options like walking or biking.

We are hopeful that the Obama Administration will heed our call and change this rule to encourage a more holistic approach for measuring traffic congestion that counts everyone and supports the ambitious plans of local, metro and state leaders to make smart transportation investments to better connect all people to opportunity.

—

For immediate release
Contact: Steve Davis
steve.davis@t4america.org
202-971-3902

Transportation for America (www.t4america.org) and the National Complete Streets Campaign (www.completestreets.org) are programs of Smart Growth America (www.smartgrowthamerica.org).

Time is running out to tell USDOT to measure more than just vehicles

These two streets in Nashville, Tennessee are very different and have different functions. Why does the U.S. Department of Transportation want to measure their success the same way? 

Nashville congestion comparison 2

One is intended to move goods and people, largely in vehicles, quickly between two points. The other moves people — in cars, in buses, on bikes, on foot — while also creating a framework to produce lasting value, economic activity, and a sense of place.

It doesn’t make sense to measure the success of these streets the same way. Yet that’s exactly what USDOT is proposing with new rules for how states and metro areas would have to measure and address congestion — prioritizing vehicle speed above almost all other criteria.

This is our final chance to speak up: sign a letter asking USDOT to change this proposed rule.

The most successful city streets have to use limited space to move people efficiently, whether walking, biking, taking transit or driving. Yet this congestion rule as it is currently written would count only vehicles.

A street that moves a lot of people should never be considered unsuccessful, even if it doesn’t necessarily move a lot of cars.

The proposed rule would make driving fast the ultimate goal of our transportation system, regardless of what type of road or street you’re on. Should driving fast be the highest priority on main streets where people go to shop or sit and eat at an outdoor café? Should moving cars quickly be the top priority in residential neighborhoods where children might be biking or walking?

A street that creates value, economic prosperity and a sense of place should never be considered unsuccessful, even if it doesn’t necessarily move a lot of cars.

We have a chance to change this rule, but time is running out. Public comments on the rule close this week, and now is a crucial time to speak out.

Tell USDOT to improve their proposed rule and send a letter today.

You can view or share examples from a handful of other cities below.

SF congestion comparison 2 Charlotte congestion comparison 2 DC Congestion Comparison 2 Chicago congestion comparison Seattle congestion comparison 2 Portland congestion comparison 2 NYC congestion comparison LA congestion comparison 2 Denver congestion comparison 2 Atlanta congestion comparison

 

A large congressional delegation asks USDOT to improve the proposed congestion rule

Updated 7/28 11:50 a.m. Earlier this week, a large group of senators and representatives sent a letter to USDOT Secretary Foxx, requesting that USDOT change a flawed proposed rule for measuring congestion. They asked that USDOT assess the movement of people, rather than vehicles, as a better measure of congestion and also reward the improvements that can come from transit, toll lanes, or encouraging travelers to choose other options like walking or biking.

Congestion Buses 2

As we’ve been discussing here for a few months now, a new draft rule from USDOT will govern how states and metro areas will have to measure and address congestion. That proposal as written would define “success” in incredibly outdated ways, and old measures lead to old “solutions,” like prioritizing fast driving speeds above all other modes of transportation and their associated benefits.

The shortcomings in the proposed rule got the attention of some members of Congress, and earlier this week Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) were joined by 64 other members from the House and Senate on a letter to Secretary Foxx about the rule. (19 senators and 48 representatives total.)

From the (Senate) letter: (pdf)

“How we measure performance and outcomes directly affects the choice of investments that will be made. If we focus, as this proposed rule does, on keeping traffic moving at high speeds at all times of day on all types of roads and streets, then the result is easy to predict: States and MPOs will prioritize investments to increase average speeds for cars, at the expense of goals to provide safe, reliable, environmentally-sensitive, multimodal transportation options for all users of the transportation system, despite those goals being stated in federal statute. Encouraging faster speeds on roadways undermines the safety of roads for all road users, as well as the economic vitality of our communities.”

We’re encouraged to see this large group of elected leaders on board with the idea that how we measure congestion matters. It certainly matters for the communities — of all sizes — that they represent, and getting it wrong will have real impacts. In the letter, they note that the proposed rule doesn’t quite line up with some of the stated goals of Secretary Foxx, his Ladders of Opportunity program, and the Every Place Counts Challenge intended to help communities and neighborhoods that have been cut off or isolated by poorly-planned highway projects.

Yet, for far too long our transportation investments have focused solely on moving vehicles through a community rather than to a community, and without regard for the impacts to the community. In the process we have created real barriers for millions of Americans to access essential destinations. These barriers are most present for low-income communities and communities of color.

Nail on the head.

Our streets are about far more than just moving people through a community as fast as possible. They’re community assets and the framework for creating value and economic prosperity, and should be treated like more than just a simple pipe moving one thing quickly all day long.

Note: the House letter is here (pdf)

UPDATE: Representative Earl Blumenauer added his personal thoughts to the release of the letter:

Our federal highway system is stuck in the 1950s. By failing to properly evaluate the billions we spend on road maintenance and construction, we’ve created a transportation system that is unsafe, is increasingly harming the environment despite improving technology, and has left a legacy of racial exclusion and segmented communities.  We have to do better. The Department of Transportation has an opportunity to make sure that federal spending can help meet our goals of safety, sustainability, and accessibility. I hope these comments are considered.

And in case you missed it, Senator Tom Carper also wrote a short note about the congestion rule for the T4America newsletter yesterday. (Don’t get our bi-weekly newsletter? Rectify that immediately by signing up right here.)

Our federal transportation system’s ability to move people and goods is key to an efficient and growing economy, which is why it’s critical for the Department of Transportation to focus on the movement of people instead of vehicles in its congestion relief measures. In order to improve the safety of our roads, and build a world-class transportation system that revitalizes our regional economies, we need to invest in innovative congestion relief techniques that facilitate the movement of people without encouraging faster speeds or incentivizing costly highway expansions. 

Have you sent a letter to USDOT yet? There’s still time to generate a letter that we’ll deliver on your behalf before the comment period closes in a few weeks. We’ve already delivered 2,400 letters, but we’re aiming for far more.

Send yours today.