John Mica and John Boehner would have you believe their bill is a blessing for transit. It isn't.

Republicans are not anti-transit, but we do recognize that the Highway Trust Fund is paid for by highways users, and cities and local governments must look at developing a similar user fee system for transit users.

This bill gives more flexibility to states to fund their most critical transportation needs, and under this bill states can also use the funds authorized under the highway program for transit systems if they so choose.

Because of the struggling economy, changing driving patterns and more fuel efficient vehicles, the Highway Trust Fund is in repeated danger of running dry. The Republican bill stabilizes the Trust Fund for the next five years, ensures states have the ability to fund their most critical transportation needs, and also guarantees transit funding.

Transportation myths die hard, and here the House GOP is trotting out a bunch of them — plus a few new sadistic rhetorical flourishes — to justify what’s quickly becoming known as the worst transportation bill ever. A quick primer on how the Republican leadership is lying about their bill:

1. The House GOP is not guaranteeing transit funding. They’re eliminating guaranteed transit funding.

Ask anyone who works in public transit, and they’ll tell you this bill would wreak havoc as soon as it is passed. By ending the policy begun by Ronald Reagan of funding federal transit programs with gas tax revenue, House Republicans would cast a pall of uncertainty over just about every transit agency in America. The Republican “guarantee” is nothing but a guarantee of more haggling over limited dollars as transit programs go up against other spending priorities in the general fund. Without the certainty that gas tax revenues provide, transit agencies will immediately move to cut service and raise fares, exactly what Americans don’t need while gas prices are rising and jobs are still scarce.

2. Highways are not “paid for by highway users.”

Gas taxes and tolls don’t cover the cost of highways, not by a longshot. In 2007, for example, user fees only covered 51 percent of highway costs, according to Subsidyscope. In other words, roads are subsidized — on a much larger scale than transit.

3. The House GOP bill does nothing to “stabilize” the Highway Trust Fund.

The bill relies on one-shot fees from gas and oil drilling to make up for the deficit in the Highway Trust Fund. While this would ensure that highways are subsidized even more than they are now, it’s a completely inadequate way to pay for transportation infrastructure, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

4. There’s already a “user fee system for transit users.”

It’s called the farebox.

5. “Changing driving patterns” are not endangering the Highway Trust Fund.

The truth is that even though Americans are driving less, the nation’s transportation funding system would be on solid footing if the federal gas tax kept pace with inflation. But since the gas tax is much lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was in 1993, the last year it was raised, the Highway Trust Fund is depleted. Congress and President Obama could solve the problem by taking another page from Reagan and adjusting the gas tax.

(The other Orwellian touch here is that the House bill doesn’t actually include any policies to adapt to “changing driving patterns.” In fact, it seems to have been drafted with 1950s-era driving patterns in mind. A bill that accounts for changing driving patterns would reflect the steadily increasing number of American transit riders, cyclists, and pedestrians, and the decline of driving per capita. Instead, the House bill puts all its resources into infrastructure for driving.)

6. States already have the “flexibility” to spend their highway funds on transit — the problem is they don’t like to.

States have had the flexibility to spend their highway funds on transit for decades. But highways are what they know, so highways are what they build.

When the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act passed in 1991, it was supposed to mark the end of an era, says Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director for the Natural Resource Defense Council. The interstate highway system was finished, and federal transportation money would go to increasingly to other things — dedicated funding for bike/ped projects, an expanded transit program, a larger program for congestion mitigation and air quality improvement, all part of an enlarged Surface Transportation Program. States could “flex” STP funds however they wanted. “Unfortunately, the track record for flexing STP has been very poor,” said Lovaas. “State highway agencies focus on highways.”

If the House GOP really cared about local control of transportation funds, they could draft a bill that distributes federal funding to cities and towns. The problem for John Boehner and the oil companies who back this bill is that cities and towns spend transportation dollars on things like transit, biking, and walking.

Introducing the newest member of the Streetsblog family… Luna Blue Evans-Snyder was born the afternoon of January 13. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 12 ounces.

As you might imagine, Tanya’s byline is going to be a little scarce over the next several weeks. If you’d like to send her well-wishes and recommendations for a good balance bike, you can reach her at tanya.c.snyder@gmail.com.

Before I get to that, congratulations to the winner of last week’s prize: Long-time Streetsblog reader Marc Agger will be taking home a Zero Tweed bag from Rickshaw Bags.

This week’s prize comes courtesy of Levi’s. Make a one-time or monthly gift by Friday at midnight and you could win a jacket and jeans from Levi’s new Commuter line, designed specifically for cyclists.

The jeans

The jacket

I have the Commuter jacket and it’s great for riding in the spring or fall, even in the rain.

Thanks again to all our dedicated supporters. If you haven’t donated yet, please pitch in and help make 2012 a great year for livable streets coverage.

Photo: Office of Senator Frank Lautenberg

The hikes marked the first time the Port Authority had raised tolls since 2008, and the only the third since 2001. Nevertheless, congressional representatives from the area are making noise. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) teamed up today to announce a bill to increase federal oversight of road tolls.

The “Commuter Protection Act” would restore U.S. DOT’s power to determine whether tolls on interstate bridges and tunnels are “just and reasonable” and set lower maximum tolls if they deem it necessary. The agency had that power until 1987, when it was revoked during an era of deregulation. The bill would also require the Government Accountability Office to produce a report on the “transparency and accountability” of how toll rates are set.

“When it costs $12 to drive your car across a bridge in America [the rate for cash tolls], something is wrong,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “Commuters are suffering.”

Lautenberg has a strong pro-transit record, but in this case he may end up hurting transit by taking up the cause of constituents who drive into the city. For one thing, the tolls have led to a four percent drop in traffic across the Port Authority crossings, which is good news for bus speeds. Meanwhile, ridership on PATH trains has risen 3.7 percent.

It’s still an open question whether the final draft of the bill will consider transit a “just and reasonable” purpose for tolling funds. There is currently no legal definition of “just and reasonable.” Even if transit is covered, however, the bill could still do damage.

If the U.S. DOT were to actually intervene with the Port Authority, for instance, there would probably be less funding available for transit. Already, the Port Authority scrapped plans to build a much-needed new bus depot in Manhattan because Governors Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo scaled back the latest round of toll hikes.

The main argument that the Port Authority toll hikes are not “just and reasonable” centers around whether toll revenues are being spent on non-transportation projects. The Port Authority had said that the revenues would help pay for redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. Last week, after AAA filed a lawsuit challenging the the toll hike, Port Authority officials then changed their tune, saying all funds would be dedicated to transportation.

Lautenberg’s office says they’re looking for transparency. He and Grimm say the revenues may just be going to bail out a “debt-stricken and mismanaged” Port Authority. But public agencies become “debt-stricken” in part because political leaders lack the will to raise fees and tolls.

The tolling debate comes amid a serious infrastructure-funding crunch, in which state and city DOTs are searching high and low for money – sometimes just for basic maintenance. Some are protesting federal rules against tolling existing highways as they seek funds to maintain those roads – or, in some cases, fund transit projects that could reduce wear and tear on those roads to begin with.

If you haven’t contributed yet, here’s a little extra incentive. Give between now and the end of the week, and you could win a lovely, sturdy, functional Zero Tweed Bag courtesy of the fine San Francisco-based manufacturers at Rickshaw Bags. Feast your eyes on the prize:

Donate between now and Friday at midnight and you’ll be entered to win one of these puppies. We’ll announce the winner next week.

Whether you claim the prize or it goes to someone else, you’ll come away with a warm feeling after making a contribution to your online voice for livable streets.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming…

The Washington Metro system keeps hundreds of thousands of cars off the streets a day, and is responsible for hundreds of millions in tax revenues and household savings per year. Photo: thisisbossi/Flickr

At the heart of the region’s success is, of course, the Washington Metro, which has shaped development for more than three decades. In fact, so much of the land near Metro stations has been developed that ridership is projected to reach the design capacity of the current system within the next 20 years. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is currently mapping out how to respond.

At a panel this morning, Nat Bottigheimer, an assistant general manager at WMATA, shared some results from an internal study the agency conducted as part of this process. The core question he investigated: “What is it you’re actually getting from a transit investment?”

The agency’s research and modeling produced some intriguing numbers demonstrating how the creation of Metro — its 86 stations and 106 miles of track — has benefited the region:

• Since the system was created, $212 billion in real estate value has been added within a half-mile of Metro stations.
• Land value near Metro stations generates $2.8 billion annually in property tax revenues. $195 million of that is directly attributable to transit.
• Households in the region reap the equivalent of $705 million per year in time savings thanks to Metro.
• Households save $305 million per year on costs related to owning and driving cars.
• Every day Metro riders walk 33,000 miles.

On the other side of the coin, there’s everything that Metro has prevented from happening. Without Metro…

• Commuters would have to put up with commutes that take 25 percent longer. This would effectively curtail people’s access to jobs and employers’ access to the workforce.
• The region would see more than a million additional auto trips per day.
• This traffic would require 1,000 additional lane miles to accommodate, the equivalent of two Capital Beltways’ worth of asphalt.
• Four to six more traffic lanes across the Potomac would be necessary.
• The downtown core would be eviscerated by parking. To store all the extra cars would take 200,000 parking spots, the equivalent of 170 blocks filled with five-story parking structures.
• All that car infrastructure would cost nearly $11 billion to build, and impose huge maintenance costs every year.

Bottigheimer’s stats brought to mind this graphic of a hypothetical NYC, where the subway’s been obliterated and everyone has to drive and park to get around instead.

Amount of space that would be taken up by parking and roads if everyone who rides the subway into Manhattan's CBD drove to work instead. Image: Michael Frumin

I’d be remiss not to mention these stats from Dennis Leach, director of the transportation division at the Arlington County Department of Environmental Services. In the 1970s, Arlington was losing population and facing a bleak future as Northern Virginia’s doormat to the D.C. core. But local leaders “bet the ranch” on focusing growth near Metro stations, said Leach, and the county is now a thriving example of how walkable, transit-oriented development can make inner suburbs more attractive places to live and work.

Some highlights from Leach’s presentation:

• Arlington now has more than 100,000 housing units, and 40 percent of them are above transit stops.
• Some of the arterial roads near the places that have been developed most intensely are actually seeing declines in traffic.
• Ridership on the local bus system has tripled since 2005. It is no longer mainly a feeder system getting commuters to and from Metro, but a viable network in its own right serving a variety of trips.
• Some of the county’s biking and walking trails have higher travel volumes than some arterial roads.
• In the areas near Arlington’s transit stops, walking captures between 20 and 30 percent of all trips, compared to the regional average of 5 to 6 percent.
• In a survey, 40 percent of local business leaders said transportation access was the number one reason Arlington was a good place to locate.

From the Irish Independent:

Rebellious Lithuanian mayor Arturas Zuokas has taken clearing bike lanes of illegally parked cars into his own hands.

He drove an army personnel carrier over an old Mercedes-Benz S-Class that had been parked in a bike lane in the capital Vilnius in a bid warn owners of “posh” cars that they have to abide by the rules like anyone else.

“I wanted to send a message,” the avid cyclist and former war correspondent said.

Not only does their mayor crush bike lane blocking luxury cars by running over them in armored military vehicles, but residents of Vilnius can apparently make trips on their public bike system for free. Can Rahm Emanuel top that?

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The price for a job listing on Streetsblog, which will be highlighted on all of our sites, is $50. Early adopters get a 100 percent discount: Our first 40 listings are free.

If you’re searching for a job, it’s easy to browse our database for openings in your field. (We have ten listings in five cities — and counting — as we go to press.)

As an independent, not-for-profit news source, we’re also excited about the jobs board as one more way to diversify the way we fund Streetsblog and support the work we do. Try it out and if you have any feedback on how we can improve it, please drop us a line at tips@streetsblog.org.

In ITDP's BRT rating system, the SDX route in Las Vegas eked out a bronze-standard rating, one of only five American routes to pass the threshold of "true BRT." Image: ITDP

Attempts by U.S. cities to build Bus Rapid Transit systems tend to get stymied by a Catch-22: Most Americans have no experience riding great BRT, so mustering the political will to build full-fledged systems — and reallocate the necessary street space from cars to buses — is often fiendishly difficult. The results — incremental bus improvements sold to the public as BRT — are too watered down to showcase the full extent to which bus-based systems can attract riders and get people to switch from driving to transit.

In Boston, for instance, bus speeds for one route on the Silver Line Waterfront corridor actually decreased despite the project’s $619 million pricetag. Meanwhile, cities in Latin America, Asia, and Africa are rolling out new, high-capacity BRT systems at a rapid clip, leaving American transit networks behind.

Cities can get away with calling half-measures “BRT” in part because there are no standards in place to define what truly qualifies as BRT. If all it takes is pre-paid boarding and longer spacing between stops, then the term loses meaning. In a new report, “Recapturing Global Leadership in Bus Rapid Transit” [PDF], the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy sets out to fill this void with BRT standards that American cities can shoot for.

ITDP is proposing a scoring system to grade bus-based transit corridors, which would work much like the LEED certification system for green buildings. The authors say their scorecard has yet to be perfected, but it already spits out results that make intuitive sense — like the fact that no U.S. city has ever built a first-rate BRT corridor. While American attempts to build bus rapid transit systems have shaved travel times and attracted new riders to transit, ITDP concludes that every single one has failed to meet the highest standards for BRT design.

“Based on what we’ve seen in our work in cities around the world, we think there’s still more that could be done,” ITDP director Walter Hook said in a statement accompanying the report. “Getting at least one truly world-class BRT system built in the U.S. could inspire cities around the country to rethink the way they use buses in the fight against increasing traffic congestion and rising fuel prices.”

More than 20 American bus projects have claimed the BRT mantle, the authors report, but only five even qualify as true Bus Rapid Transit: Cleveland’s HealthLine, Los Angeles’s Orange Line, Pittsburgh’s East Busway, Eugene’s EmX, and Las Vegas’s SDX. Those corridors all distinguished themselves by running buses in the center of the roadbed and physically separating them from regular traffic — two characteristics that factor heavily in ITDP’s 100-point scale.

Even the best American systems barely make the cut as “true BRT.” The top-rated bus line in the states, the HealthLine, scores a 63. That’s good enough for what ITDP calls the bronze-standard BRT rating, but far short of the gold-standard systems in Bogota (a 93) or Guangzhou (an 89) that use BRT infrastructure for several routes and carry tens of thousands of passengers per hour. Boston’s Silver Line and New York’s Select Bus Service, meanwhile, scored below the 50-point threshold ITDP has set for projects to qualify as BRT.

To break free from the BRT Catch-22 in the United States, some city will have to go out on a limb and build a gold-standard system that other American cities can look to as a model. With Rahm Emanuel signaling his interest in building BRT with a full complement of features, Chicago might be that city. ITDP also identifies upcoming bus projects in the Bay Area and Montgomery County, Maryland as candidates to raise the standard for American BRT. (The full report goes into tremendous detail about the hurdles that stand in the way of building these projects as robustly as possible, including antiquated engineering guidelines that prioritize traffic flow.)

Once someone decides to build world-class BRT in the United States, it shouldn’t be long until Americans see what it can do. The ability to move quickly from design to implementation is one of the chief advantages of BRT. If an ambitious new Midwestern mayor set his mind to it, the nation’s first gold-standard BRT system could be up and running by 2014.

We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled Streetsblog Network round-ups next week.

Senators Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer on the return leg of their journey this morning. Photo: Carly Clark

Senator Chuck Schumer broke his long public silence on the redesigned Prospect Park West in dramatic fashion this morning, leading members of Congress on a two-wheeled tour of the physically separated bike lane that runs past his Brooklyn home. Schumer used the occasion to announce that he’ll be introducing new legislation to promote investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

“I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this bike lane, and I just wanted to wait until this moment to say, ‘What’s not to like?’” Schumer told a press gaggle at Grand Army Plaza. “There’s much less speeding and more people feel safer riding their bikes to get around the neighborhood thanks to this new design. America needs more streets like this.”

Schumer’s bill, the Livable Streets Act of 2011, would make $3 billion available to states and cities each year for investment in walkable street networks and improvements to bicycle and pedestrian safety. The bill is intended to be part of the upcoming long-term reauthorization of the nation’s transportation law.

At the presser, Schumer was joined by California Democrat Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee and will shepherd much of the transportation bill through the Senate. Schumer said he’s been waiting since the redesign was installed last summer to show it to Boxer as an example of what bicycle and pedestrian investment can accomplish.

“Nothing beats a nice, long Brooklyn bike ride with my friends from Congress, but it used to scare them to death getting passed on this street by traffic going 40 miles an hour,” he said after leading a leisurely round-trip ride, in a light drizzle, to the opposite end of the bike lane and back. “Now you can start off comfortable and relaxed, and you see so many other people out biking. They’re going to work, they’re taking their kids to school.”

“You know, the President talked about ‘winning the future’ in his state of the union speech this year,” he added. “Well, we’re winning the future right outside my front door. This is what progress looks like.”

After the ride, Boxer said she looked forward to working with Schumer on incorporating his legislation into the final transportation bill. “You really get incredible bang for the buck out of projects like this, which make a whole lot of sense when you consider that 40 percent of all the trips we make in America are within two miles of home,” she said. “Factor in what you save from having fewer crashes and injuries and less wear-and-tear on the roads, and this is going to pay for itself.”

Invoking his policy muses, the imaginary Massapequa couple he calls the Baileys, Schumer noted that smarter zoning and safer streets could make bicycling a viable transportation option even if you have creaky knees and live in the suburbs. “These days the Baileys are getting squeezed at the pump,” he said. “Gas costs $4 a gallon. They can’t afford to make every trip by car. If we think we can drill our way out of this situation like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and the other extremists who get marching orders from Big Oil, we’re kidding ourselves. We need better choices for getting around, and transit and bikes have got to be part of the mix.”

When asked about the lawsuit filed last month by opponents of the bike lane, Schumer defended NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and called the plaintiffs’ campaign against the redesign “a cynical concoction of distortions and lies.”

“Janette is taking it on the chin from what I call the culture of inertia, this small group of self-appointed people,” he said. “Here we have kids, families, and grandmas who finally feel safe biking on this street, and people want to sue it out of existence? We can’t give in to this shameless bullying. If we do not change, we will die.”

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Adding a few more lanes should do the trick. Photo of the 405: Atwater Village Newbie

After yesterday’s electoral drubbing, the Obama administration will have to deal with a starkly different Congress when they make their expected push for a multi-year transportation bill early next year. We know that some influential House Republicans, like John Mica, don’t necessarily believe that bigger highways will solve America’s transportation problems. And we know that some pro-transit voices in Washington originate from the right. But no one expects the GOP ascendancy to make transportation reform any easier.

For a taste of the right-wing line against transportation reform, check out the election week issue of the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. Inside, editor Fred Barnes (under fire recently for accepting speaking fees from the GOP) mounts an attack on just about every federal transportation policy other than highway spending. There’s nothing really conservative about Barnes’s screed — it could have come straight from the pen of an asphalt industry lobbyist. Wondering what a transportation bill would look like if it were reshaped according to what highway boosters believe should be the “core program”? Read Barnes and find out.

He starts by ridiculing Ray LaHood’s speech at the 2010 National Bike Summit, where the transportation secretary said that Americans “want out of their cars, they want out of congestion, they want to live in livable neighborhoods and livable communities.” Barnes disagrees:

LaHood was half right. People hate traffic congestion. But they want to get out of their cars about as much as they want to get stuck behind a bicyclist who rides at a donkey’s pace before running through red lights and stop signs. What people mainly want is to stay in their cars and have LaHood do something to reduce congestion.

Like finance the construction and maintenance of highways and bridges to facilitate the flow of autos and trucks. That, rather than promoting “livability” or “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized,” is the job of the Department of Transportation. Always has been.

This is, basically, his entire argument: People just want to “stay in their cars.” We have zero interest in getting around any other way. According to Fred Barnes, we are perfectly content to drive and drive and drive, as long as we don’t have to put up with all the other people driving. If you believe that, then his cheerleading for highway construction makes a lot of sense.

If being inside our cars is what we’re really all about, by all means lets throw more money down the sinkhole of highway expansion. That will guarantee more quality time inside our cars. Then, a few years later, when we’re in our cars but not enjoying it so much because the new lanes are jammed with traffic again, we’ll repeat the whole expensive process.

But if we’d rather spend more time with our families and loved ones — or, you know, doing actual work instead of commuting — maybe we should try a different way of building our transportation system. According to public opinion research by Transportation for America, 57 percent of Americans would like to spend less time in their cars. Even with our highway-centric system, we’re already voting with our feet: These days, Americans are driving less and opting to walk, bike, and ride transit more than we were at the beginning of the decade.

A cursory internet search reveals that, when Barnes says the job of U.S. DOT has always been to build highways and only highways, he’s just making stuff up. The U.S. DOT mission statement does not mention any particular mode. The department’s job is, in fact, to “serve the United States by ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future.”

So there’s some flexibility here. Now, consider that the Pentagon is under the impression that climate change poses a risk to national security. Or that public health experts peg the annual medical costs imposed by traffic and pollution at more than $200 billion. Or the mounting evidence that car dependence begets obesity and higher medical costs. Or that, according to research by CEOs for Cities, travel times are longest in sprawling metro areas, while areas that pursued smart growth and livability strategies have actually reduced commute times. All of which points to the conclusion that at this moment, the U.S. DOT’s job — providing an efficient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and so forth — is indeed to advance livability and stop promoting motorized transport.

Back to the Barnes highway-building argument. Maybe you’re worried that fighting congestion by building more roads that generate more congestion is a bad way to spend money. But Fred Barnes isn’t. He is, however, highly concerned about spending on rail:

The stimulus included $8 billion for high-speed projects, again not “paid for.” Now the administration is taking “the next step toward realizing its vision for high-speed rail,” the Department of Transportation said in June, handing out “$2.1 billion in grants to continue the development of high-speed intercity passenger rail corridors.”

On top of that, there’s talk in Washington of spending $50 billion more on high-speed trains. Where the funding would come from is anybody’s guess, but LaHood is fully on board. High-speed rail between cities is needed “so people can get out of their cars,” he said in an interview last month with Grist magazine. “They can take a train ride to see Grandma rather than doing it in a car.”

You know what else we haven’t figured out how to pay for? Highways. According to Subsidyscope, gas taxes and other fees have never covered the costs of the highway system. In 2007, fees collected from highway users barely covered half the costs of building and maintaining highways. That year, about $70 billion in highway funding came from other sources. (Even in New York, which, more than any other state, uses fees on driving to support public transit, drivers cover only 65 cents of each dollar spent on highways [PDF].) Meanwhile, the bicycle and pedestrian projects that Barnes moans about received all of $1.2 billion in federal funding in 2009, a record-setting year.

You could say that these massive subsidies for the highway system affect our behavior and induce driving. But Fred Barnes has different ideas about what affects our transportation decisions:

Last year, George Will zinged LaHood as the “Secretary of Behavior Modification” for his fervent opposition to cars. LaHood all but pleaded guilty. Steering funds from highways to bike and walking paths and streetcars, he said, “is a way to coerce people out of their cars.” His word, coerce.

But it’s hardly an answer to traffic congestion. Most people, most of the time, aren’t going to ride a bike to work or walk. They’re going to drive, even in the face of disincentives erected by LaHood.

LaHood will wear “coerce people out of their cars” around his neck forever. Which is ironic, because if anything, the Obama DOT has assiduously avoided erecting any “disincentives” to driving. The gas tax rate has been untouchable under LaHood. A mileage tax has been a non-starter. The last time U.S. DOT encouraged cities to pursue policies like congestion pricing or performance parking, which do affect driving behavior, George W. Bush was president.

The Obama administration, with its priority on ejecting people from their cars and its embrace of an environmental ethic that regards highways as evil, is unlikely to champion a higher gas tax. Any other tax increase you can imagine, yes. This one, no. That means Republicans will have to step up. They can insist the revenues be used solely for highways and bridges. Local governments would then be free to spend on bikeways.

A lobbyist for highway builders could hardly have said it better. The gas tax is theirs — it belongs to highways. This is the mentality that advocates for transportation reform will face off against in the months ahead, when the administration moves forward with its infrastructure push. Every dollar for transit, bicycling and safer streets will be contested. Be prepared.

The parties have mapped out a two-week process for U.S. DOT and New Jersey officials to review different options to move the ARC project forward. The Star-Ledger has the story.

If you’re an optimist about these talks, I think the relevant question now is: What conditions will LaHood have to meet? Share your scenarios in the comments.

Before joining Streetsblog, Tanya covered Congress for Pacifica Radio’s Washington Bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She worked as a reporter and editor for WTOP, the Washington area’s most listened-to radio station, and pioneered some changes to their transportation coverage, weaving in bike and pedestrian issues on the same station bringing readers traffic updates “on the 8′s.” When Tanya first approached me about the national reporter position, she said that livable cities are no abstract issue for her — as a bike commuter who’s never owned a car, her own safety and mobility depend on complete streets.

With the Obama administration finally getting serious about a long-term re-authorization of the national transportation bill, Tanya and Streetsblog’s national team will be covering developments on Capitol Hill and also — this is critical — why reforming the current highway-centric system matters.

In addition to introducing Tanya, a warm welcome is way overdue for Angie Schmitt, who’s been bringing you daily updates from the Streetsblog Network, the national coalition of bloggers and advocates dedicated to sustainable transportation and livable streets that’s now more than 400 members strong. Angie is an urban planner and journalist who reported for the Toledo Blade for three years. She’s also a founder of Network member Rust Wire.

Our ongoing national coverage at Streetsblog Capitol Hill and the Streetsblog Network is possible thanks to a grant from the Surdna Foundation and support from Transportation for America.

In the next few months, we’ll be trying out some new things with Streetsblog’s national beat. We’re going to need your help, so here’s what we’re thinking.

The legislative stories unfolding inside the Beltway have a very real impact on the local fights for transit funding and safer streets that Streetsblog Network members write about every day. But sometimes it can be hard to connect the dots. To bring home what’s at stake in the transportation re-authorization, Streetsblog is going to plumb the ins and outs of local transportation reform stories. Transit funding in Seattle. Smart growth in northeast Ohio. Potential highway teardowns in New Orleans and St. Louis. All over the country, people are fighting for a greener, more equitable transportation system on their home turf. We’ll make state and federal policy more engaging by linking it to these local opportunities for reforming our transportation system.

Add that to the Beltway beat, and it’s a lot of ground for one reporter to cover. We’re plotting out the best way to do it, so stay tuned, but there’s no doubt we’ll be asking Streetsblog readers and Streetsblog Network members to pitch in. For now, if you have a transportation reform story you’d like to see tackled on Streetsblog, drop Tanya a line at tanya [at] streetsblog [dot] org.

You can also get in on the ground floor of Tanya’s Streetsblog Twitter feed: Follow her @StreetsblogDC.

Over at Grist, Jonathan Hiskes reports that CNT has turned their data into a consumer-friendly web app called Abogo (a portmanteau of "abode" plus "go"). With Abogo, currently in beta form, you enter an address and it spits out the average monthly transportation costs you can expect to pay, and how that compares to the regional average. You can also look at a neighborhood, city or region and look at how it stacks up:

In the Abogo mapping tool, the Bronx shows up as a green area with low transportation costs.

Hiskes writes:

CNT's hope is that the information nudges homebuyers and renters toward more compact, walkable places -- or at least gives them a more realistic picture of what it costs to live in auto-dependent neighborhoods.

"When you choose a home, you're choosing a location and everything that has to do with that location," said Stefanie Shull, a CNT policy analyst. "That location determines how much you're going to have to drive to take care of your daily needs."

Next up: The Abogo/WalkScore mash-up?

More from around the Network: David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington vouches for mayoral challenger Vince Gray's smart growth cred. My Wheels Are Turning, a member blog out of northern Michigan, notes that the local bike boom in Traverse City has been accompanied by an uptick in sidewalk riding. And the Austin Contrarian critiques the decision to attach a big surface parking lot to a new city library.

Dan Maes: Don’t count him out of Colorado gov’s race just because he’s crazy. Photo: Denver Post

It turns out that Dan Maes, an insurgent with Tea Party cred vying for the GOP nomination, already has his sights trained on Hickenlooper’s transportation initiatives and their sinister origins.

The week after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Hickenlooper, and a few other guys in suits saddled up to try out Denver’s new bike-share system, B-Cycle, Maes weighed in on what this advance in transportation really means. Read all about the paranoia in the Denver Post:

Maes is warning voters that Hickenlooper’s policies,
particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver
into a United Nations community."

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told
about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in
Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s
efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were
harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes "that’s exactly the attitude
they want you to have."

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said.

I work in the shadow of UN global headquarters and, being an enterprising journalist, I’ve seen a draft of this plan. It goes like this: First they lull you into submission with the public bikes. Then they nullify the Bill of Rights, outlaw the English language, and strip away your American citizenship. Then they seize your SUV.

Anyway… Before you dismiss Maes as a fringe character who just showed too much of his crazy side to gain statewide public office, consider this. Three days ago he was edging out his competition in the race for the GOP nomination. If he’s elected, he’ll basically control Colorado DOT’s billion-dollar annual budget. So, all you global government-supporting bike riders out there, there’s no guarantee this will be a laughing matter in November.

Shaun Donovan, Ray LaHood, Lisa Jackson: Together forever? The Livable Communities Act would codify the partnership between HUD, US DOT, and the EPA. Photo: EPA

Most of the action would flow through HUD. This year the agency is funding $150 million in grants supporting regional efforts to improve access to transit and promote walkable development. The Livable Communities Act promises to scale up that program significantly, creating a new office within HUD, called the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, that will distribute about $4 billion through competitive grants.

The initial round of grants would fund comprehensive plans -- local initiatives to shape growth by coordinating housing, transportation, and economic development policies. Most of the funding -- $3.75 billion -- would be distributed over three years to implement projects identified in such plans.

While some Senators from rural states had expressed skepticism about the benefits of the bill for their constituents, yesterday's vote split strictly along party lines, with Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Tim Johnson of South Dakota both voting in favor.

To make the case for the bill to his rural and Republican counterparts, Dodd singled out Envision Utah, a campaign that has built public support for smart growth policies in one of the country's reddest states. Not a single GOP Senator voted for the bill, however, even Utah's Bob Bennett, who told UPI, "I think the overall philosophy is wise, but I will be voting against it."

Some of the strongest backing for the bill has come from AARP, which sent a letter to committee members on Monday pointing out that the country's aging population will be poorly served if development patterns don't evolve to make driving less necessary. "Nine out of ten of our members tell us they want to stay in their own homes as they age -- most are living in suburban or rural areas and don't have access to public transportation," said Debra Alvarez, senior legislative representative for AARP. "There's a lot of things that can be done in small towns: co-locating things like post offices, grocery stores, pharmacies, and putting housing there too."

Advocates for transportation reform are now looking at the path forward for the bill. "We applaud the Committee for taking this major step forward on behalf of communities both small and large, and for American families looking for affordable homes in healthy neighborhoods with reliable transportation options," said Transportation for America director James Corless in a statement. "We urge the full Senate to follow their lead and give final passage."

Dodd has vowed to shepherd the Livable Communities Act through to become law before he retires in January. With Congress about to adjourn until September 13, he'll face a tight time frame. In addition to awaiting a vote in the full Senate, the bill has yet to clear a committee vote in the House, where Colorado representative Ed Perlmutter is the sponsor.

Earlier this week, Ken Archer at Greater Greater Washington posted this revealing graphic showing the relationship between the amount of driving we do in the United States and the death toll on our roads. Even as conventional traffic safety techniques have made driving less deadly, the rise in miles driven knocked back those improvements. It wasn’t until our collective mileage flattened out that safety gains could be fully realized. Thousands of lives were saved when the growth in driving came to a halt.

So it should seem obvious that policy discussions of the risk posed by traffic should prioritize measures to reduce driving and encourage travel by other means, but, as Archer notes, public health authorities tend not to attack the problem that way:

Traffic is the leading cause of death among children worldwide and the leading cause
of death among 1-34 year olds in the United States. So, why isn’t
traffic considered the top threat to public health by the CDC, WHO and
federal, state and local governments?

Why
don’t officials approach traffic reduction with the same urgency that
they approach, say, tobacco or malnutrition? The answer can be found in
the CDC’s publications on injury prevention…

The CDC, NIH and other agencies focus on traffic safety as the preventable cause of death, not traffic itself. WHO’s recommendations for addressing traffic fatalities are "speed, alcohol, seat-belts and child restraints, helmets, and visibility."
[Editor's note: The WHO and CDC have also issued reports recommending traffic reduction strategies.] The flaw in this exclusive focus on traffic safety is that increased
safety only matters when vehicle miles traveled (VMT) are kept static
or reduced. Instead, safety improvements that reduce fatalities per VMT
have been offset by rising VMT…

Are we serious about public health? The sooner we start demanding
honesty about the causes of the top killer of children here and abroad
the better, because during the 2 minutes you spent reading this
article, another child died in a traffic collision.

One agency that has focused attention on traffic as a public safety threat, Archer notes, is the New York City Department of Health, which recently released a report indicating that the city’s robust transit system is a big reason why traffic-related child deaths are relatively low — one-third the national average.

Elsewhere on the Network: Cap’n Transit on transit funding kludges. (What’s a kludge? You’ll just have to follow the link.) M-Bike notes another milestone for Michigan’s complete streets bill. And Straight Outta Suburbia critiques Los Angeles’s minimum parking requirements.