Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Pensacola, Florida. Springfield, Missouri. Fort Wayne, Indiana. All three of those metropolitan areas have populations between 350,000 and 500,000, and all three would have been required to install nitrogen dioxide monitoring stations near major roadways under a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule cracking down on the pollutant.

But as the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) noted soon after the EPA unveiled its rule, an initial draft setting the minimum population for local air-quality monitoring at 350,000 was changed to 500,000, leaving out cities such as Fort Wayne and effectively weakening the nitrogen dioxide rule's accountability.

Another watchdog group traced the change to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which evaluates new agency regulations through a smaller arm called OIRA (short for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs). The president's nominee to lead OIRA, Cass Sunstein, has taken heat from green groups for his past criticism of government's role in the rule-making process.

What's the significance of the OMB's change to the EPA rule? "The fewer the monitors, the more likely it is that many metropolitan areas will be able to exceed EPA’s limits without detection or correction," CPR president and law professor Rena Steinzor wrote on the group's blog in late January.

Steinzor's post also addressed the significance of the new nitrogen dioxide rule, noting that the pollutant tends to be especially common, and dangerous, in lower-income neighborhoods located near busy roads:

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The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are making significant progress on their joint effort, with the U.S. DOT, to connect cleaner transportation options with affordable  housing and denser urban development.

The latest moves came as Obama administration officials gathered in Seattle for the annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference, where HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan officially tapped Shelley Poticha and Ron Sims as leaders of his agency's sustainable communities office.

On the HUD website, Donovan's aides are seeking input and suggestions from local planners as they prepare to award an initial $100 million in grants to cities with plans for transportation and land use reform.

Not to be outdone, EPA took the opportunity to launch two pilot grant programs aimed at using clean water funds to boost community development and rebuilding brownfield communities around transit access.

The water-funding pilot will focus on New York, California, and Maryland, while the brownfields -- former industrial sites where hazardous materials may impede environmental cleanup -- selected for transit-oriented development aid are located in Indianapolis, Iowa City, Denver, Boston, and the San Diego area.

The three federal agencies involved in green development work are also beefing up their message, connecting a number of recent policy shifts on their respective fronts into a larger narrative of progress towards a more harmonious approach to transportation and housing. For a recap of the recent steps taken by the EPA, HUD, and U.S. DOT -- many of which were covered by Streetsblog Capitol Hill -- check out the agencies' January bulletin [PDF].

Despite Senate Democratic efforts to move quickly on a new jobs bill that includes infrastructure investment and takes steps towards solving the nation's transportation financing dilemma, Congress has just two more weeks of work until time runs out on the latest short-term extension of the five-year-old law governing federal transport policy.

Republicans in the House mounted a surprisingly vocal opposition to the first short-term extension in September, suggesting more resistance to come when Democrats in both chambers attempt to agree -- sometime before February 28 -- on legislation giving another planning reprieve to local transportation officials.

Even calls for a new extension by the road and business lobbies, reliable campaign donors to Democrats and Republicans alike, have fallen on deaf ears as lawmakers brace for a midterm election season dominated by anti-incumbent sentiment. Politico noted today that the GOP is preparing to oppose a $20 billion-plus infusion of taxpayer money to the highway trust fund, citing "concern about rising deficits."

That politically motivated foot-dragging is in some ways a nod to the extent and complexity of Washington's transportation financing problem. Rescuing the highway trust fund again may be a bitter pill to swallow, but with congressional leaders unwilling to look at a gas tax increase -- and no certainty that such a hike would even get the job done as Americans drive less in more fuel-efficient cars -- lawmakers have little to lose by extending the highway-centric 2005 transportation bill again this month, effectively hitting the snooze button on infrastructure policy.

Still, not every Republican is opposed to making the hard choices necessary to raise revenue for a new transportation bill. That was the message that Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) delivered to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood during a recent House Appropriations Committee hearing. As LaTourette told his former GOP colleague (emphasis mine):

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Today on the Streetsblog Network, Connecticut Smart Growth asks for a reconsideration of the cul-de-sac. As the post notes, a couple of important studies in recent years have highlighted how this iconic type of suburban development causes unsafe and costly traffic problems. Now governments in several parts of the country are discouraging such dead-end developments:

The cul-de-sac's glory days may be past. (Photo: piermario via Flickr)

Early last year the state of Virginia became the first state to severely limit cul-de-sacs from future development.  Similar actions have been taken in Portland Oregon, Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina.  What they are beginning to realize is that the cul-de-sac street grid uses land inefficiently, discourages walking and biking, and causes an almost complete dependence on driving, with attendant pollution and energy use. Furthermore, town officials are beginning to realize that unconnected streets cost more money to provide services to and force traffic onto increasingly crowded arterial roads, which then, in many cases, need to be widened (more tax money).…

With municipal and state budgets at the breaking point, why aren't CT officials looking at land use patterns and their accompanying expenditures and begin the process of growing smarter? I don't know about you, but I am willing to live without the cul-de-sac if it would save me some tax money. 

More from around the network: Beat Bike Blog has a great little item about an older gentleman who rides his bike in Hartford, Connecticut:

In this bike's owner, we have personified the nullification of every excuse anyone has ever given for not riding. You think you're too old? Unless you are well into your 70's or older, this man has you beat. Too cold? Temps were in the low 20s this particular afternoon. Are you too tired, too sore, too out of shape? I invite you to check out the custom cane mount. This man walks with a cane, hooks it on to the rack and frame of his heavy single-speed bike and rides on.

And Tucson Bike Lawyer has the story of a good Samaritan who chased down a drunk driver after she hit and dragged a bicyclist -- and took her keys away from her so she couldn't flee the scene. 

• Previewing tonight's "Blueprint America" episode on the path Detroit must take to build a future apart from the auto industry; check it out on PBS at 10pm (NYT)
  

• Dallas looking ahead to the transportation challenges it will face while hosting Super Bowl 2011 (Morn News)

• A new study from the Economic Policy Institute finds that Transportation for America's proposed transport stimulus would create 480,000 direct jobs (EDF Press)

• Denver's FasTrax transit master plan gets a $300m boost from Washington (D. Post)

• In Seattle, one councilman envisions new elevated light rail running alongside I-405 (S. Times)
  

• LaHood concerned that rising use of in-car technology could be exacerbating driver distraction (Autoblog)

• As Congress gears up its investigation of the company's recall debacle, Toyota's troubles are just beginning (AP)
  

In New York City, Mayor Mike Bloomberg is expected to announce his verdict on Times Square's new pedestrian spaces very soon. Will the changes be permanent? This morning Bloomberg told radio host John Gambling that we'll find out sometime next week. In the meantime, the media has focused on rumors that Midtown traffic speeds may not have increased across the board, without paying much attention to the tremendous difference this project has made for hundreds of thousands of pedestrians every day.

It's been eight months since this part of Broadway went car-free, and maybe it's hard to recall just how bad Times Square used to be for everyone walking around. To really appreciate what we have today, you've got to take a trip back in time to see the crowded, dangerous mess that used to fester at the crossroads of the world. Naturally, the moment calls for a Streetfilms retrospective.

The winners of $1.5 billion in merit-based transportation stimulus grants through the program known as TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) will be announced on or perhaps even before February 17, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood confirmed this week.

Language in the Obama administration's first economic stimulus law required TIGER funding recipients to be named by February 17, and LaHood told the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday that word may come down "a day or two before that."

Metro and rural areas around the country are eagerly awaiting word on the fate of their TIGER applications. Nearly $57 billion in bids were submitted for the stimulus law's much smaller pot of transportation aid.

LaHood also addressed the fate of the $600 million that Congress included in its 2010 transportation spending bill for more grants in the vein of TIGER, which rewards projects that meet a core group of benchmarks -- including job creation and sustainability -- rather than running funds through often-politicized state DOTs.

That extra $600 million in TIGER grants will spark a new round of competition, LaHood said, with a second round of winners announced in the coming months.

The Transportation Secretary also broke some news relating to the White House's proposed National Infrastructure Fund, which has some key differences from previous congressional plans for an Infrastructure Bank located outside of the U.S. DOT. LaHood told lawmakers that "we will be proposing authorization language very soon" so that Congress can examine the details of the White House's Fund plan.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, a post from Aaron Renn on New Geography about the anti-urban bias in transportation spending. Renn points out that when it comes to the amount of taxes they contribute and the amount of funds they get back from the government, the nation's cities all too often get the short end of the stick -- to the ultimate detriment of regional economies.

It's a complicated question, and we suggest that you go and read his very thoughtful post in full. Here's a taste:

Too many roads to nowhere. (Photo: Peter Zarria via Flickr)

Among urban and rural areas, who subsidizes whom?

It's methodologically difficult to measure net taxation, but the studies that have been done suggest that, contrary to the belief of some, urban areas are big time net tax donors. For example, a recent Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute study found that Indiana's urban and suburban counties generally subsidize rural ones.…

Exhibit A is transportation. Two-thirds of Americans live in large metro areas, yet less than half the federal transportation stimulus funds are going to the top 100 metro areas. Missouri is spending half its stimulus money on 89 small counties that account for only a quarter of the state's population. In Ohio, the state cancelled plans to spend $100 million in stimulus funds on the crumbling Cleveland Inner Belt bridge in order to divert them to paying for a $150 million bypass around Nelsonville -- a town of only 5,000 people. This is part of a plan to construct a four-lane divided highway into sparsely populated southeast Ohio as part of a “build it and they will come” economic development plan. Mecklenburg County, NC, the state's largest and home to Charlotte, received only $7.8 million out of the first $423 million in projects in that state. The Atlantic Monthly described this as a contest between a “mayor's stimulus” and a “governor's stimulus” -- and the governor won. Continue...

• A reminder that transit, and trees, are better job creators than fossil fuels (Grist)

• "Before calls for a gas tax increase become deafening, DOT needs some real reform of the way it does business, prioritizing projects of real significance and managing for successful outcomes" (TNR's The Avenue)
  

• A look at Portland's $613m plan for bike infrastructure expansion (CSM)
  

• Political blogger hit by government-owned SUV making illegal left turn -- and hit with a jaywalking ticket while recuperating with broken knee (Daily Caller)

• Crime plagues Detroit's new transit center (Free Press)
  

• Maryland budget analysts want to siphon off $60m in transportation funding, to the chagrin of state transport officials (Balt Sun)

• A local editorial board urges Alabamans: Get on board with high-speed rail (Plainsman)
  

Today brought news of two grim transportation numbers from the Obama administration: 2 and $53 million.

The first figure is the percentage of federal transport stimulus contracts that have gone to disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses, according to the U.S. DOT. The 2-percent figure was released this afternoon by the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), which included government emails verifying its data.

In real dollar terms, that 2 percent comes out to $986 million of the stimulus law's $48 billion in total transportation spending. The low total for disadvantaged and minority firms, known by the shorthand of DBEs, comes five months after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced a $20 million bonding program aimed at helping less well-connected companies compete for federal business.

"This number is absolutely shocking," TEN executive director Laura Barrett said in a statement. "Secretary LaHood is encouraging state DOTs to increase allocations to minority and disadvantaged contractors, but this number proves that encouragement is not enough. The old boys network that locks out minority contractors was built on the state and local level, and it needs to be fought at that level to reverse this outrageous inequity."

Anecdotal reports of minority contractors getting shortchanged by transportation stimulus spending have emerged in Illinois, Minnesota, and California, among other states. The 2005 federal transportation law states that at least 10 percent of federal roads and transit spending should be routed through DBEs, unless the Transport Secretary determines otherwise.

The second not-so-great transportation number, $53 million, reflects the total spending on pollution-reducing transit grants that the White House included in its budget proposal for fiscal year 2011.

The administration hopes to steer nearly 10 times that amount, or nearly $530 million, to its new three-agency partnership for sustainable communities. Still, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) pulled out the $53 million number today to note that the White House had proposed $22 million more for the same type of transit grants last year (and ended up spending $100 million).

From the EESI's budget statement (emphasis theirs):

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Despite brought support for the concept of a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) to help pay for major improvements to America's built environment, including transportation, significant uncertainty still surrounds the questions of how the bank would work as well as what it would fund. 

As Streetsblog Capitol Hill has reported, the House transportation committee took a different approach to the NIB than sponsors of a recently invigorated NIB push spearheaded by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT).

In its six-year, $500 billion federal transport bill, the House panel proposed to house an NIB within the U.S. DOT, while DeLauro's NIB plan would set up an independent bank with its own directors and a strict set of criteria by which to evaluate proposed projects.

Now that the Obama administration has advanced the idea further by pitching a $4 billion National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund in its 2011 budget, momentum for passage would seem to be growing. But as DeLauro pointed out Tuesday during a hearing with White House budget chief Peter Orszag, the president's Fund looks more like the House transport committee's vision than her own.

DeLauro tossed a number of salient questions at Orszag:

How much private capital do you anticipate the fund will leverage? And how many jobs do you think can be created with the fund? Is the $4 billion request for 2011 a one-time request, or does the administration propose this is an ongoing annual funding level? If the fund is located in the Department of Transportation, with a board composed of senior DOT officials and other federal agency representatives reporting to the transportation secretary, how do we expect or how can we expect it to be an objective, independent entity?

The Connecticut lawmaker also questioned why the White House would limit its Infrastructure Fund to transportation when water quality, energy, telecom and other elements of the built environment all tie into the way the nation gets around.

"The basic goal here is to [build] on the success that we have had with the TIGER grants program," Orszag told her, leaving the door open for an expansion into other types of projects.

Still, it's far from clear that such an expansion would be feasible if the White House's Infrastructure Fund were to become a part of the internal U.S. DOT structure. And limiting the independence of such a fund could leave it open to political concerns, particularly if senior members of Congress attempt to sway its decision-making process in an earmark-like style.

And the physical location of an NIB is not the only question mark left unanswered. Continue...

Senate Democratic leaders appeared this morning to tout their commitment to passing a job-creation bill by the end of next week -- but the substance of their jobs measure, including the fate of pivotal transportation provisions, remains up in the air.

Harry Reid (D-NV), the upper chamber's majority leader, told reporters that he was "hopeful" a bipartisan jobs bill could be ready for public view within the next day or two, followed by a first vote on Monday. "If not," he added, "[Democrats] will lay one down ourselves."

The Obama administration has called for the Senate to add more funding for TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery), the stimulus law's $1.5 billion merit-based grant program, to its jobs plan. Reid indicated on Tuesday that his party was receptive to more TIGER aid.

Another infrastructure-centric provision attracting broad interest is an extension of Build America Bonds (BABs), which allow local governments to finance transportation projects more easily by offering a 35 percent federal subsidy. New York City's transit authority is one of many local agencies turning to BABs to make debt offerings more attractive to private investors.

Finally, the politically tricky status of the highway trust fund remains on Congress' plate, with the House and Senate still at odds over how to keep it funded nearly five months after the first expiration of the nation's 2005 federal transportation law.

Reid said earlier this week that a one-year extension of the trust fund likely would be added to the Senate's jobs bill. But with Senate Democrats aiming to coax Republicans on board by breaking up their economic-recovery agenda into smaller pieces, it remains to be seen whether the trust fund, BABs, or TIGER will make it into the legislation set for votes on Monday.

Also left unanswered is how much, if any, spending the Senate would direct at ready-to-go transportation projects. An initial jobs-bill outline circulated last week suggested that $14 billion for roads and $7.5 billion for transit could make it into the legislation, but Democrats offered no hint of whether those numbers were still in the mix.

The office of Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who has taken the lead on the infrastructure elements of her party's jobs program, did not immediately return a request for clarification of the timing for transportation spending.

If Senate Democrats were sure of anything this morning, however, it was the need for speedy consideration of the yet-to-emerge jobs provisions. "Let's put these on the floor and move on them with a sense of urgency," Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said.

Late Update: Illustrating the pitfalls of the Democratic hopefulness that the still-to-come jobs plan could win GOP support is the following quote, which Politico attributes to a spokesman for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY):

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Cities and counties across the country are struggling with the funding of their transit systems in these hard times. In New York City, the payroll tax solution touted in Albany last year has failed to meet projections. In Lorain County, Ohio, the rejection of a sales tax by voters resulted in crippling cutbacks to that region's bus service.

What's at stake when transit is starved of funding? Today on the Streetsblog Network, Steve Patterson of Urban Review STL decided to lay out ten reasons voters should approve a sales tax increase that will help to  bolster transit service in the St. Louis region. A similar proposal failed in 2008, triggering massive cutbacks and layoffs. Here's why Patterson thinks it's so important that it pass this time:

St. Louis County Executive Charlie "A" Dooley, August 2006. (Photo: Urban Review STL)

Tuesday April 6, 2010, voters in St. Louis County will decide the fate of Proposition A -- a 1/2 cent sales tax to match the same tax previously approved by voters in the City of St. Louis.  Revenues would be used to fund existing operations and expand service of our regional public transit.

I decided to put together list of what “A” can do for the region:

• Accelerate: strong transit will accelerate the trend toward filling in the core rather than pushing outward at the edges. This helps ensure those folks who moved to the edge won’t be surrounded by new construction.
• Accessible: public transit makes going from home to work accessible to many. This applies to those of us with disabilities as well as those without access to an automobile. Getting our citizens to work, school is important for a strong region.…
• Affirm: passage will affirm our commitment to a regional transit network. This affirmation will send a strong message to companies and people considering the St. Louis region as a future location.
• Affordable: as we saw when service was cut back people couldn’t get to work. Employers need their employees at work. Our region can’t afford to not have a functioning transit system. We can’t afford to not pass this tax.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the St. Louis County sales tax proposition. Will voters be willing to pass it? Have proponents done a good enough job of making their case?

More importantly, what kind of long-term solutions will cities and regions be able to devise -- not just to build transit networks, but to maintain and operate them after the ribbon-cutting ceremonies are long forgotten? For those of us who believe in the vital importance of public transportation systems, this is the question that needs to be solved. Your thoughts welcome in the comments.

• One day after President Obama signaled a loss of momentum for climate change legislation, he walks back the notion as one GOP senator urges Democrats not to pass "some half-assed energy bill" instead (MoJo Blog)

• Limit the amount of smog produced by autos and other fossil fuel-burners? Texas officials say heck no (NYT)
  

• Schwarzenegger joins pro-infrastructure ally Rendell to talk up the importance of investing in water treatment (NBC Bay Area)
  

• A new study from Canada projects that every hour spent behind the wheel cuts life expectancy by 20 minutes; the prescription: slower speeds (Canadian Press via MSN)

• How the White House budget emphasizes the value of regional, not purely state-based, economies (TNR's The Avenue)

• A call for the California business world to start giving high-speed rail some love (HuffPo)
  

• Kentucky's Dem governor pressing a long-term roads plan despite "the realities of the national economy and a less reliable highway trust fund" (Maysville Online)
  

Despite data backing up the White House's assertion that politics played no role in high-speed rail decision-making, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) -- waging a re-election bid against a GOP primary challenger as well as the Democratic mayor of Houston -- wasn't shy about complaining after his state received less than one-hundredth of the $1.8 billion in rail stimulus it had requested.

As a Perry spokesman put it to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram:

Considering we only get back 70 cents on every dollar we send to Washington for highways, we've learned to hope for the best and expect the worst. The only money Texas got was for Amtrak, so it appears the federal government is protecting its own. Texans got shortchanged again.

Given that Texas transport officials have acknowledged the weaknesses in their funding plan, which lacked the necessary environmental studies to move forward with a "T-bone" rail system linking Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, and San Antonio, one would think Perry's administration might have kept its expectations low.

But any federal official looking to gauge Texas' depth of commitment to building bullet trains wouldn't have to look further than Perry himself. When asked for his stance on rail, the governor told the Dallas Morning News:

I am supportive of efforts to establish rail in Texas, but it would be premature to ask voters to set up a fund for high-speed rail before we even know whether it would work. ... We need to first determine if High Speed Rail is feasible and then take responsible steps for financing.

Not quite a vote of confidence, particularly after Perry vowed to reject White House stimulus aid and later turned around to accept federal funding. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood drove the point home today, saying that uneven leadership -- not politics -- hurt Texas' chances at high-speed rail money. Roll Call had the key quote:

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