Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Cross-posted with permission from the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.

House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) wrapped up his nationwide tour of more than a dozen congressional districts Friday in King of Prussia, PA by listening to selected speakers from around the Greater Philadelphia region. Mica was joined by host Congressman Pat Meehan (PA-07) and Bill Shuster (PA-09) on the panel.

Mica, who started the week in Afghanistan and Europe and the day in Scranton, PA, opened the session by stating that he wants to the next federal transportation bill to make proper choices about building infrastructure and the nation’s economy. He also said that he was done with extensions and was going to start drafting a bill in April. That bill, he said, will add in a rail component and identify where red tape could be cut.

The theme of the session was “how to do more with less.” That phrase was uttered over a dozen times throughout the two hours by members of Congress and the speakers. Mica stated unequivocally that the gas tax was not going to get raised, explaining, “It’s not just my position; it’s just not going to happen in the reality in which I live.” He stated that the goal was to find ways to raise revenue without raising taxes. But, to start, he asked the speakers directly, “What do you want changed?”

P3s, or public-private partnerships, were a hot topic. State Senator John Rafferty (44th District), who chairs the Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee, spoke about his legislation to create more of these partnerships to raise revenue for transportation projects. Rafferty said states need more flexibility from the feds to toll. He was quick to say that the state needed $20-60 billion to maintain the existing transportation system but that P3s could help supplement.

Cecile Charlton of the Delaware County Transportation Management Association and Rob Henry of the Greater Valley Forge TMA said they already do more with less and work hard to promote all modes of transportation, especially SEPTA, the region’s transit agency. Given the growth of jobs and housing in the counties, having a strong transit system is critical, and Ms. Charlton urged the committee to include public transit as an important piece of the new bill.

Read more…

According to a Transportation Committee staffer, a tentative schedule for the previously postponed field hearings is taking shape. Three hearings were postponed last month when debate ran long (until 4:30 a.m., in fact) on H.R.1, the house bill that cut $61 billion from the FY2011 budget.

According to the staffer, details are still being worked out, but the rescheduled listening sessions (and one new session) are being held as follows:

March 24: Rochester and Cortland, NY
March 25: Scranton and Philadelphia/King of Prussia, PA

The Cortland, NY date is a new hearing, not a rescheduled one. Cortland is in the district of freshman Republican Richard Hanna, who leapfrogged over far more senior members to be named vice chair of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee.

We interviewed Hanna about a week after he was sworn in. APTA Government Relations Director Paul Dean told me yesterday that Hanna stood out as one of the most knowledgable new members about transportation among those he’s visited with (and he’s visited with just about all of them by now). “[Hanna] comes from a construction background and really knows the importance of investment in transportation infrastructure,” Dean said.

How long do you have to wait for a bus in your city? How much does it cost? Does every family on your block have two cars? And tell us about your bikeshare program…

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has been asking questions like these to determine their list of 15 Smarter Cities – places with shorter, cheaper, and more efficient commutes.

They split the list into big, medium and small cities. Have a look:

2011 Smarter Cities for Transportation

Large (population > 1 million)

Boston, MA/NH
Chicago, IL
New York, NY
Portland, OR
Philadelphia, PA/NJ
San Francisco, CA
Washington, DC/MD/VA/WV

Medium (pop. between 250,000 – 1 million)

Boulder-Longmont, CO
Honolulu, HI
Jersey City, NJ
New Haven, CT

Small (pop. < 250,000)

Bremerton, WA
Champaign-Urbana, IL
Lincoln, NE
Yolo, CA

Philly got bonus points for its transit initiative to connect people to fresh food. Boulder scored high for its brand-new Transportation Master Plan, which incorporated the public in the planning process and indicates “a serious commitment to responsible travel within the county.” And Yolo, California boasts a higher degree of transit access – 91 percent of households – than any other similarly sized metro region.

It’s innovations like these that are going to light the way to a future of cleaner air, financially stable households, and healthier cities.

Sprawl can take a disproportionate toll on older people. Their eyesight might make them nervous about driving at night, or unable to drive at all. It can take them a long time to cross wide, high-traffic arterial roads. Poor transit options can make them feel like a burden on others whom they depend on for rides, or can leave them stranded at home. Besides, if they don’t have places to walk to, the effects of aging can creep up faster on those who aren’t out getting regular exercise.

Recognizing these dangers for older Americans, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) honored four cities yesterday with its “Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Award.” Combining the principles of smart growth with the concept of active aging, the awards are intended to raise awareness about ways to build communities where seniors can lead active lives.

The population of American seniors – persons 65 years or older – is rapidly increasing. By 2030, there will be about 72.1 million senior citizens, or about 19 percent of the population – up from 12.9 percent in 2009.

Mecklenburg County, NC

One of the EPA’s awardees, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina recognized this silver boom and began improvements in 2005 by adopting the Status of Seniors Initiative (SOSI), making improvements to the built environment to make it more age-friendly.

The county and city of Charlotte have concentrated new growth in several existing corridors, creating higher densities, mixed-use development and a more walkable community. More than 5,000 new housing units have been constructed. Sixteen miles of greenways, 88 miles of bike facilities and 106 miles of sidewalks have been completed.

Read more…

The Obama administration is taking its infrastructure push on the road. First stop: Philadelphia, to announce a $53 billion plan to invest in high-speed rail.

To Vice President Joe Biden, high-speed rail isn’t just another administration initiative. He’s Mr. Amtrak. He gets it. Biden says he’s made 7,900 round trips between Wilmington and Washington on Amtrak. If each of those trips had been reduced by 10 minutes, he says, he would have had 55 more days to spend with his family or working.

So the vice president was a fitting ambassador to travel to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to announce a six-year plan to build a national high-speed rail network that will, the administration says, reach 80 percent of Americans within 25 years. The plan he outlined today would devote $8 billion to rail development next year.

“In the next 40 years, the United States is expected to increase in population by 100 million people,” Biden said. “Seventy percent of all people in America now live within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. You know how congested we are now. What happens with 100 million more, a significant portion of them along our coasts?”

Each day, he said, six times more people take a train than an airplane to get between Washington and Philadelphia. And more than twice as many people take the train between New York and Washington than fly. “How many more slots can the Philadelphia airport open?” Biden asked. “Airways can only take so much traffic in the lanes.”

“If you shut down Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor,” Biden said, “you’d have to add seven new lanes to I-95 to accommodate the traffic.” He then went on to cite the cost-benefit analysis of building rail instead of road. The construction cost for an average linear mile of one lane through the city of Philadelphia ranges from $40-50 million. And one new runway, like the one Atlanta just built in its Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, costs $1.3 billion.

“When you talk about the investments we’re making in rail, they pale in comparison to investment you’d have to make in runways or highways,” Biden said. “And that’s before you factor in the environmental benefit of taking cars off the road.”

Read more…

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.

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.

Read more…

More committee news…

Yesterday’s field hearing of the House Transportation Committee on high-speed rail in New York City wasn’t officially part of the series of field hearings on the reauthorization. The tentative schedule hits small towns, big cities, and suburbs:

• February 14th – West Virginia (Ranking Democrat Nick Rahall’s home state)
• February 17th – Philadelphia area (Republican committee freshmen Patrick Meehan and Lou Barletta are from the area, as is Democratic T&I member Tim Holden)
• February 18th – Rochester, NY (freshman Republican Tom Reed’s district and not too far for some of Richard Hanna’s constituents)
• February 19-20 – Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis, and suburbs of Chicago (within reach of four Republican members’ districts and one Democrat)
• February 21-23 – Portland, OR; Vancouver, WA; Fresno and Southern California (reaching four Republican districts and two Democrat)

The hearings may be focused on specific topics, which haven’t been announced yet. Witnesses must be invited to speak.

Aging infrastructure across the country has become an enormous safety risk. It’s also becoming an economic hazard.

Last year, the Federal Transit Administration announced that the seven largest rail transit systems had a backlog of $50 billion in maintenance needs to bring them into a state of good repair. In June, the agency determined that nationwide, the backlog is nearly $78 billion.

Though these needed repair and maintenance projects may be less impressive to the public than major expansions, they are key to increasing ridership and decreasing costs.

Last week, FTA Deputy Administrator Therese McMillan told the North America Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum that the agency is linking good transit maintenance to its livability initiatives. Keeping systems in good repair, she said, is the foundation of safe, reliable rail service that can help draw new residents to vacated areas.

“When we’re looking at the opportunities for in-fill, particularly in our major urban areas, where we can take advantage of the infrastructure we already have, this is where State of Good Repair becomes a very key piece of a livability initiative,” McMillan said. “So it’s not just about building the new stuff into greenfield. It’s about investing and making transit a real value-added as part of these strategic re-investments in communities.”

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority boasts the oldest transit system in America, said Richard Davey, who heads up the MBTA. So maintenance is no small task for them. Ninety-nine percent of the MBTA’s five-year capital plan is for repair and maintenance, which is projected to decrease their debt burden.

Bringing existing infrastructure up to code isn’t always the most popular use of money, especially when agencies have to choose between maintenance and investments that riders perceive more easily. Jeffrey Knueppel of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) said his agency even takes heat for focusing on safety. “At times we are criticized for not expanding the system, and also at times for not doing the customer amenities projects that other agencies have done,” he said.

But he said prioritizing maintenance is by far the most efficient use of funds. Looking at SEPTA’s bridges, Knueppel said, “We have an opportunity now to rehabilitate most of them, rather than replace them. If we continue to defer spending on our bridges we’ll end up spending a lot more money later to replace these structures.”

So how to pay for it?

Several agencies, including the MBTA, SEPTA, and New Jersey Transit, are looking at their parking assets to augment existing income streams. They’re considering leasing or selling off some of their parking lots. In the Philadelphia suburbs, towns that find themselves short on nighttime parking want to enter into an agreement to use the SEPTA lots during the off-peak hours.

Meanwhile, the FTA is developing proposals on the issue and is beginning to train grantees on asset management, but access to money for repairs is still a difficult prospect for many transit systems.

As the Senate opened its second round of climate change hearings today, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter delivered the urban case for climate legislation, outlining an array of infrastructure improvements and green reforms that would be made possible by federal action to reduce carbon emissions.

Testifying on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Nutter singled out his city's "complete streets" policy as a key element of the local revitalization that has attracted more private investment and new residents to Philadelphia:

Over the past five decades, Philadelphia lost jobs and residents. The pulls that caused people to leave our city and others like it were driven in part by government policies that valued highways over transit and new tract housing over older row homes. But, in recent years, Philadelphia has begun to witness a rebirth ... people and jobs are moving in and private investments are being made. People again view our walkable neighborhoods and public transportation systems as assets to value and nurture.

Nutter also described a series of sustainable infrastructure projects that his city is prepared to launch once long-term funding is secured. The Senate climate bill sets up a new block grant program that would provide that long-term funding, directing money to metro areas for energy efficiency and conservation projects.

Among the Philadelphia proposals mentioned by Nutter were the city's "green corridors" program -- now in line for a $6 million pilot phase -- that would install landscaped sidewalks to collect storm water as well as new energy-efficient streetlights and traffic signals. A parallel effort, known as "green streets," would increase tree cover and install curb bump-outs with sidewalk planters to decrease heat-trapping.

"Our experience ... is characteristic of so many cities that are moving forward with these investments," Nutter told the Senate environment committee, which will hear from more than two dozen witnesses today alone.

Republican witnesses offered a counterpoint to the urban experience, focusing almost exclusively on the high cost that regulating emissions would impose on traditional fossil fuel-burning industries.

"We are in favor of green jobs but not at the expense of the heartland, of red, white, and blue jobs," Bill Klesse, CEO of oil company Valero, told the environment panel.

Today's hearing can be followed live here, courtesy of the committee.

For those just tuning in, economist Ed Glaeser has been writing a four-part series on the potential costs and benefits of high-speed rail at the New York Times' Economix blog. He began three weeks ago with an introduction. The following week he addressed direct costs and benefits from a hypothetical line, and last week he attempted to gauge the environmental benefits of high-speed rail construction.

The whole of the analysis has been highly flawed (see my earlier criticisms here and here). It is overly simplistic, excludes important variables, and relies on faulty assumptions.

Glaeser has quite nearly admitted as much, arguing that he chose the hypothetical Dallas-Houston route -- which is not in the administration's plan for a high-speed network -- in order "to avoid giving the impression that this back-of-the-envelope calculation represents a complete evaluation of any actual proposed route."

But it doesn't take a close read to see that Glaeser wishes to demonstrate that rail investments do not make economic sense. He has not been particularly charitable in acknowledging the shortcomings of his work, and he has therefore left his readers with a very misleading picture of the probable outcome of construction of a high-speed rail system.

I have continued to hold out hope that he'll improve his analysis along the way, but as of today we have the final chapter -- on high-speed rail's potential reshaping of the American economy -- and it, too, is embarrassingly bad.

In his earlier posts, Glaeser did not take population growth into account -- a rather large failing while analyzing a piece of infrastructure we can expect to last for decades. This time around he aims to defuse this criticism by writing:

These numbers suggest that costs will exceed benefits each year by $524 million if the rail line has 1.5 million customers, and by $401 million if the region’s rail demand has a huge rate of growth and attracts three million riders.

It's worth recalling where those numbers come from. Read more...