Streetsblog Capitol Hill

St. Louis' Arch grounds will get better pedestrian connectivity across I-70, thanks to a $20 million TIGER grant. Image: NextSTL

If you live in Stamford, Connecticut and your walk to the train station gets safer next year, you can thank USDOT’s TIGER grant program. Or when your hometown of American Falls, Idaho suddenly gets complete streets downtown, accommodating people on foot, on bikes, on buses, in cars, and in wheelchairs, encouraging local shopping. Or when you realize that traffic congestion between Olympia and Tacoma, Washington has eased, not by adding lanes but by installing intelligent technology to manage traffic and encourage ridesharing.

All 46 of the TIGER III award grantees have been announced now, and there are sure to be more communities disappointed than excited, given that there were 828 applications totaling $14.1 billion and USDOT had only $511 million to give. The money went to 33 states and Puerto Rico. USDOT was careful to include many rural projects, though those tend to be the smallest grant awards. Twenty of the 46 projects are in rural areas, but they only amount to about 30 percent of the total outlay. (Check out Transportation for America’s fantastic interactive map of grantees from all three rounds of TIGER.)

All in all, 48 percent of the projects fund roadwork, with about a quarter of those funds paying for complete streets treatments like the one in American Falls. Another 29 percent goes to transit – a far better shake for transit than generally comes of the normal Congressional appropriations process. Twelve percent went to ports, 10 percent for freight rail, and two percent for passenger rail.

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In an old supermarket space in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, a diverse community of bicycle aficionados are getting greasy. Young and old, Latino and white, they are truing wheels and replacing cables and adjusting brakes in L.A.’s newest, and completely unplanned, bike co-op.

Volunteers' meeting, Bici Libre. Photo: Jonny Green, LACBC Bike Wrangler

Bici Libre, as it’s called, got its start when the County Cycling Collaborative received a stimulus grant of $200,000 to spruce up “stray” bikes, with the help of volunteers gaining job skills. They rented the vacant grocery store to be just a warehouse to store the old bikes, but it quickly evolved into a hub of bicycle education, advocacy, and community.

But Bici Libre could disappear as quickly as it materialized. The stimulus grant that funds it runs out next March, and the CCC doesn’t know how – or if – it’ll be able to keep the new bike co-op alive.

Bici Libre is just one of many potential casualties of the boom-and-bust stimulus cycle. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act breathed life into countless worthy projects, including many planning and education programs that promote green transportation, but they can’t all last forever. Some, like Bici Libre, are now scrounging for future funding. Others may just close up shop.

In Portland, for example, the Bureau of Transportation expanded its Smart Trips program, where people can order information about transit that runs through their neighborhood, a bike kit, a walking kit, or information about carpooling. A customized packet of information is then delivered to them by bicycle, along with a calendar of events like group rides for seniors or women.

Eight hundred thousand dollars of stimulus money launched a Smart Trips program for new residents and helped augment the programs that worked with schools and businesses. But that money will be spent soon. “Smart Trips to School is probably going to disappear,” said Marni Glick of PBOT. “The New Resident Program will probably disappear. And we will try to find funding for the Smart Trips Business.”

A pot of stimulus money called CPPW (Communities Putting Prevention to Work), distributed through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, aims to reduce obesity through nutrition and physical activity. Another branch of its work focuses on smoking cessation. The money is granted to city and state public health departments, which then partner with local nonprofits to carry out the work.

Several active transportation projects got funded this way, including Philadelphia’s Safe Routes Philly program, which “promotes biking and walking as fun, healthy forms of transportation in Philadelphia Elementary Schools.” The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia joined forces with the school district, the health department and the Food Trust (a local nonprofit working on nutrition issues) to start a campaign for healthier schools, funded at $680,000 over two years, thanks to the stimulus.

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Streetsblog San Francisco reported earlier this week that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has made a $10 million funding commitment to a mixed-use affordable housing project in the Tenderloin neighborhood, a convenient two-block walk from the nearest Muni stop:

David Baker + Partners Architects

The development at 168 Eddy Street would provide 153 new apartments reserved for low-income families and space for a 12,000-foot street-level grocery store. It would help quell some of the high demand for affordable housing in the neighborhood, where valuable lots used to park cars diminish the urban fabric despite very low car ownership. Bringing the first full-sized grocery market to the neighborhood would also provide access to healthy food options within walkable distances.

But as Gen Fujioka wrote this week on Streetsblog Los Angeles, San Francisco hasn’t always had policies in place to preserve space for low-income people as property values near transit skyrocketed.

One test of San Francisco’s affordable housing policies came in the 1990s during the dot-com boom. Amidst a hot real estate market, development pressures grew particularly in transit-rich areas. Evictions reached record levels and entire neighborhoods were transformed in a few years. According to research by UC Berkeley’s Center on Community Innovation, during the period between 1995 and 2000, the out-migration of low-income households exceeded 9,800 each year while the numbers of upper income households grew. Proximity to transit was a significant factor in explaining the pattern of displacement. Neighborhoods within a half-mile of major transit were particularly at risk of gentrification and displacement, suffering marked declines in the number of households of color.

Local social justice groups mobilized and got the city to adopt a moratorium on new development. Stagnant residential construction can also lead to rising rents, so more and more, planners are looking for ways to ensure that transit-oriented development goes hand in hand with housing affordability. Initiatives like the one now underway in the Tenderloin are a welcome sign that localities are waking up to the unintended consequences of TOD — that the rising tides of property values may not lift all boats.

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Congress members and and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa take questions from the media. John Mica is at the podium flanked by Villaraigosa and Barbara Boxer. Photo: Darrell Clarke

Goodbye “30/10″ and hello “Fast Forward America.”

Congressman John Mica (R-FL) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) brought their road show to Los Angeles earlier this week to get feedback and elicit testimony on how to improve the federal transportation bill. While Boxer was on her “home turf,” it was Mica who sounded like a local, finding time to complain about traffic, needle Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa about transit connections to LAX, and repeatedly honor Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who was attending her last public event as a member of Congress.

While there was some talk of the need to better move freight through the Southland, much of the conversation was dominated by ways to expedite project delivery of all sorts. There was no talk of America’s obesity epidemic, rebuilding our cities and communities or even a mention of the words “bicycle” or “pedestrian.” The focus was almost completely on transit and goods movement.

Back in 2008, as soon as Los Angeles County passed a half-cent sales tax dedicated toward expanding its transportation network, the question was asked, “when are we going to start seeing projects on the ground?” Thanks to some innovations from the Move L.A. Coalition and the support of the Los Angeles Mayor’s office, the 30/10 Initiative was born. The plan was to leverage the funds that would be collected over the thirty-year sales tax to build the transit projects within the next ten years. By borrowing the money from the federal government up front, projects would be delivered sooner, taking advantage of today’s low construction costs and creating 160,000 construction jobs when the industry needs it most.

Because the plan would require some changes to federal law, there had always been some discussion of how these changes would help communities outside of Southern California. Today, Mayor Villaraigosa re-branded the 30/10 Initiative as a national initiative focused on putting more construction workers to work on more projects through what he’s calling “America Fast Forward.”

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Congresswoman Laura Richardson, one of two LA-area members of Congress that sit on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, took a moment to speak directly to Streetsblog readers following today’s Joint U.S. Senate and House Field Hearing on the Transportation Reauthorization Bill. 

We’ll have more on the Field Hearing in a little bit, but in the meantime, take a second to listen to the Congresswoman’s impressions of what happened earlier today.

The T&I Committee has fleshed out the schedule of its nationwide tour to solicit input on transportation issues. The tour is an opportunity for lawmakers to hear what communities around the country would like to see in a new transportation authorization bill.

Since we published the first, tentative schedule last week, the committee has added several locations in the South: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and the Memphis metropolitan area.

When you google "Beckley, WV transit" this is what you get. Photo: Automobile Magazine

Observers note that the addition of Oklahoma could be an attempt to get the attention of Senator James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and that Tennessee is the home state of new Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chair John Duncan, though he’s from the other side of the state. Committee Democrat Steve Cohen is from Memphis, where the hearing will be. Freshman Republican Rick Crawford will play host to the Jonesboro hearing.

Meanwhile, the committee confirms that the Los Angeles hearing will be a joint House and Senate hearing, with Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the EPW Committee, co-chairing the session with Rep. John Mica.

The committee also added a date in Scranton, Pennsylvania (home of Vice President Joe Biden and Dunder Mifflin). Their stop in West Virginia now includes two different locations, 60 miles apart.

“It’s very encouraging that the hearings are happening in a lot of different kinds of metro areas,” said David Goldberg, communications director of Transportation for America – though he did note that the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington location is now firmly listed as just Vancouver.

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Environmentalists from San Diego are echoing the rhetoric of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the battle to expand the local transit network and reduce funding for highway expansion.

Transit, as it would exist in San Diego under SANDAG's hybrid option. For links to maps for all the potential plans,click here.

Enter the newly branded, “50-10″ plan.  Los Angeles’ 30/10 advocates can eat their hearts out.

Brought to you by the Save our Forest and Ranchlands (SOFAR) and the Cleveland National Forest Foundation (CNFF), “50-10″ is an attempt to influence the “2050 Regional Transportation Plan” being proposed by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). Advocates are calling on the agency to build all of its planned transit projects for the next fifty years in the next ten and to leave the highway projects for another day. Even if the agency falls short of the ten year goal, it would hold off on any highway expansion projects until the local transit network is completely built out.

“The foundation of the 50-10 plan includes the development of a preferred regional land use plan – a smart growth land use plan – and the development of a transportation mobility network that support the needs of this smart growth plan,” said Duncan McFetridge of SOFAR in a press release.

Currently, SANDAG staff is proposing a long range plan that actually includes more funding for transit investments ($24 billion) than highway investments ($21 billion). This plan is a combination of the three major options that were considered by the SANDAG Board of Directors and would have transit and highway projects built concurrently. While SOFAR and CNFF concede this is a step in the right direction, they also argue that planning such a large investment in highways as the region is trying to grow its transit mode share is somewhat incoherent.

While SOFAR and CNFF may be borrowing Villaraigosa’s rhetoric, there are many differences between 30/10 in Los Angeles and 50-10 in San Diego.

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Contested congressional primaries in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Arkansas are drawing the lion's share of media attention today, but many Los Angelenos are eyeing June 8 as their Super Tuesday. That day will bring voters to the polls in a race between Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) and Marcy Winograd, who is challenging the eight-term lawmaker from the left.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), left, meeting with transit union members. (Photo: Damien Newton)

As L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa makes a play for federal assistance with his "30/10" transit initiative, transportation has become a salient issue in the race. Streetsblog LA's Damien Newton tracked both candidates at separate infrastructure rallies this week. From his piece:

[T]he two candidates' positions also reflect a new political reality for candidates in Southern California. Los Angeles now has an organized community dedicated to green transportation or Livable Streets causes. It's now smart politics to embrace transit and bike riding in the "Car Capital of America." Both Harman and Winograd are embracing two key programs in the Livable Streets platform in Los Angeles: accelerating transit expansion and securing cyclist rights.

Check out his full report right here.

Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), two of the nation's best-known advocates for greater investment in the built environment, today joined several House Democrats in calling for federal action on a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) -- even as questions about how the bank's scope, and Congress' resistance to raising sustained new transport funding, continued to dog the debate.

Villaraigosa (r.) with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another co-chief of Building America's Future. (Photo: Getty)

Rendell and Villaraigosa came to the Capitol for a visit to the House Ways and Means Committee's revenue panel, which faces the challenging task of finding a workable financing mechanism for long-term federal transportation legislation.

Villaraigosa used his high-profile push for federal assistance with his city's "30/10" transit plan, which would expedite construction of 13 rail and rapid bus projects using proceeds from a voter-approved sales tax, to urge lawmakers' support for an NIB.

"We're not only arguing for infrastructure investment on the federal level," he said. "We're saying ... at a time of spiraling deficits, we've got to encourage local governments to put up their own money. We have done that [in L.A.]."

Rendell, who has used his role as co-chairman of the advocacy group Building America's Future to amass support for an NIB, quoted GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe's (OK) support for federal transport spending in a bid to depict infrastructure as a uniquely bipartisan issue.

"The American people are way ahead of us," Rendell told Ways and Means members. "Infrastructure is something they can touch, they can see, they can experience ... This is easier, in terms of public perception, than anybody thinks."

But even as the duo focused on the NIB -- which Rendell and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) agreed should be placed outside the U.S. DOT, counter to the White House's proposal -- the specter of the federal gas tax hung over the room. One day after conservatives began using anti-gas tax arguments in a bid to derail the new Senate climate bill, lawmakers prodded Rendell and Villaraigosa to share their views on the subject.

As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa continues to push for federal help with expediting his "30/10" transit expansion plan, winning support from California's Democratic senators, one big question remains unanswered: Can the city actually get all of its 13 proposed projects done within a decade, even if Washington steps in?

Over at Streetsblog LA, Damien Newton asked an array of local officials and advocates if they saw Villaraigosa's vision panning out on an expedited timeframe. Here's what he found:

The answer was a surprising, "maybe not, but the agency is working on making the changes it needs to make." I have to be honest. I expected a "yes."