Streetsblog Capitol Hill

“In 2014, federal investment in surface transportation — which is currently about $50 billion per year — will drop to $6 billion or $7 billion. In one year.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio says underinvestment in transit is killing people, and it's about to get way worse.

Those were the dire words spoken by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) at the start of this morning’s Transportation & Infrastructure Committee hearing on MAP-21. What he meant was this: At the end of MAP-21, the Highway Trust Fund is expected to have a balance of almost zero and a $7.1 billion shortfall in 2015. Congress would have to radically reduce FY 2015 highway and transit investment levels to ensure that the trust fund remains solvent. According to AASHTO, federal highway investments would have to be cut from approximately $41 billion to $6 billion and transit investment from $11 billion to $3 billion.

“That is pathetic,” DeFazio said. “And we have to do something about it.”

Funding Cuts Force FTA to Break Agreements

T&I Chair Bill Shuster agreed. “That’s our biggest challenge moving forward,” he said. And Ranking Democrat Nick Rahall added that the sequester cuts and Congress’s inability to pass a real budget has compounded the funding crisis.

FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff warned that the cuts will have a profound impact on transit projects around the country:

Overall, the sequester struck $656 million from FTA’s budget. It reduced program funding for our [New Starts] capital investment grants program by almost $100 million. This will means that few, if any, New Starts construction projects will be fundable in the near term.

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The consequences of the near-certain sequester for aviation have been well publicized by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s recent media blitz, but less well-known are the effects for surface transportation.

New York's Second Avenue Subway is one New Starts-funded transit expansion that could be complicated by the sequestration cuts. Image: MTA

LaHood broke that silence in a memo to department staff earlier this week and released yesterday by Politico, warning that even after taking measures like “instituting hiring freezes, cutting contracts, and taking other administrative reductions,” furloughs may be necessary in the Federal Transit Administration and the Surface Transportation Board.

FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff said last month that he’ll move “heaven and earth” to keep people working in the event of a sequester, but he may not be able to avoid furloughs. The entire FTA staffing budget is subject to the 6 percent sequester cut. (See my story from Monday detailing how the sequester works and what transportation programs will and won’t be affected.)

It could also impede transit construction projects. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign has made a list of crucial projects that could get caught in the sequester’s web, from TIGER-funded intermodal facilities in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to the New Starts-supported Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan.

“Right now, I can tell you that the sequester would require a 5 percent cut to the New Starts/Small Starts program, which would reduce funding for critical transit projects by approximately $100 million this year, creating unplanned borrowing and financing costs for states and local government,” said FTA spokesperson Brian Farber yesterday. “The cuts would also require FTA to revise its payment schedule for New Starts/Small Starts projects, slowing the payments the federal government previously committed to making.”

After fighting to maintain reasonable funding levels in the transportation bill – and for the inclusion of dedicated transit funding in the first place – the Federal Transit Administration now finds itself up against almost certain funding cuts that imperil rail and bus expansion projects, as well as the agency’s own staffing.

FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff is hoping to keep staffing steady through near-inevitable budget cuts. Photo: U.S. DOT

The fiscal cliff deal hasn’t answered many questions. Spending cuts of about 8 percent (the “sequester”) could hit at the beginning of March. The current interim budget, or “continuing resolution,” expires at the end of March. And on top of all of that, another debt ceiling deadline is looming, and Republicans will certainly try to extract spending cuts again in exchange for raising it.

“None of us knows what’s going to happen,” said Sylvia Garcia, U.S. DOT deputy assistant secretary for management and budget, at the Transportation Research Board’s annual conference Wednesday. “No matter what happens, the message from Congress right now is, ‘You’re going to have less money to do what you need to do.’”

While the Federal Highway Administration’s staff is safe from layoffs from the sequester, since they’re funded out of the Highway Trust Fund, the FTA isn’t so lucky. General-funded FTA programs — including the New Starts program for transit expansion, some research, and all FTA administration — are still vulnerable to cuts. Worse, the “across-the-board” nature of the sequester means the FTA would have to apply the cuts evenly among those three areas.

Administrator Peter Rogoff told the TRB audience yesterday that he’ll move “heaven and earth” to keep people working, especially since the agency is already running on a bare-bones budget, and they’re “one person deep in a lot of critical areas.” He’s desperately trying to avoid furloughs, and he pledges to fill vacancies in important positions.

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One of the most important federal transit programs has undergone a makeover, and transit advocates are cheering the results.

Seattle's Sound Transit light rail was funded in part by the New Starts program Photo: T4America

The Federal Transit Administration late last month released new evaluation criteria for transit projects vying for funds from the New Starts and Small Starts programs. These two programs dispensed a total of $2 billion last year, providing roughly half the funding for transit expansions in the U.S.

Previously, the FTA relied heavily on “travel time savings” to judge the merits of a project. The new formula will focus instead on the number of passengers expected to be served. Economic benefits like the impact on development will also be considered.

The new criteria also employ broader measures of the environmental benefits of transit. Instead of using the EPA’s air quality formula as the sole measure of a project’s environmental benefits, the new evaluation process will also incorporate the expected effects on public health (including traffic fatality rates) and energy use.

Advocates say the new rules will streamline the approval process and open the door to federal funding for a wider variety of transit projects.

“This is big news — leading to more fundable projects, with higher community benefits, approved faster at lower cost, for the benefit of an expanded network of qualified applicants,” said David Burwell, director of the energy and climate program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “This guidance is a heads up to communities to sharpen their pencils and get to work on their project proposals.”

U.S. DOT also estimates the new application process will save about $500,000 annually in administrative costs. The new rules are the result of a executive order issued by President Obama in January 2011 that called for streamlining federal agencies; they were not required by the new federal transportation law, MAP-21, which preserved the programs, but did not change the requirements.

Senate titan Daniel Inouye passed away Monday at 88. The Hawaii senator was the longest-serving member in the chamber at the time he died.

Sen. Daniel Inouye toured the site of the Honolulu rail transit project in August. Photo: Office of Daniel Inouye

As a fitting tribute, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood yesterday signed a full funding grant agreement with Inouye’s widow at his side, committing the federal government to $1.55 billion in transit assistance. The money will help build, at long last, the rail transit project Inouye had advocated for. Inouye had referred to the $1.55 billion offered by the FTA as “precious.”

Had Honolulu’s local election gone differently, yesterday might not have happened. Mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano wanted to scrap rail plans in favor of bus rapid transit. Sen. Inouye saw through Cayetano’s idea, saying the BRT plan “would force Honolulu to the back of the line, adding years upon years of continued traffic gridlock” since they would have to start from scratch to secure federal funding.

Hawaii’s first-ever rail transit system, already under construction, will include 21 stations along a 20-mile stretch and is expected to relieve traffic on Interstate H-1, “one of the most congested highways in America,” according to LaHood. In the 1960s, some suggestedbuilding a new freeway to relieve congestion on H-1, but the population rebelled. Fifty years later, their much better idea — rail transit — is finally inching closer to fruition.

Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff said the rail line will save commuters up to 30 minutes each way. More than 60 percent of Oahu’s population and 80 percent of its employment is located in the designated transit corridor, according to civic affairs journalism website Honolulu Civil Beat.

In addition to the $1.55 billion from the New Starts transit capital funding program, Hawaii is getting $209.9 million in federal formula funds and $4 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the project. The rail line is expected to cost just over $5 billion in total.

The signers of the FTA grant agreement left a poignant blank space where Inouye’s signature would have gone.

States have the ability to spend 29 percent of federal transportation funds on any mode, but they only "flex" 10 percent of that to transit. Image by GAO, using FHWA and FTA data

Supporters of livable streets may hear about the “flexibility” of transportation dollars and cringe – after all, that word often refers to the ability of states to use bike/ped money for road building. But flexibility can work both ways. Between 2007 and 2011, states devoted $5 billion in surface transportation funds — known in some quarters as “highway money” — to transit programs, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO just issued its second report on state flexing of highway dollars for transit. In its first report, the GAO found that states used 13 percent of their flexible highway funds for transit. That share has declined to 10 percent. The GAO did not offer an explanation for the drop.

Since 29 percent of federal transportation dollars are available to states to spend on just about any surface mode, that means about 3 percent of all federal funding is getting “flexed” to transit. Between 2007 and 2011, the GAO found, “four states — California, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia — accounted for the majority of flexible funding transferred to FTA for transit projects.” Each of those four states used more than 25 percent of their flexible funds for transit. Meanwhile, 16 states sent transit less than 2 percent of their flexible funding, with Arkansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Delaware, and Hawaii flexing nothing.

The variability between states highlights a rarely remarked upon aspect of transportation funding: There’s a lot of room for states to spend more on transit under current law, if they choose. In fact, transit dollars go farther when states use these funds, because they only have to pony up the same local match that’s required for highways – usually 20 percent. The local match for transit projects is typically upwards of 50 percent.

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Deron Lovaas is the Federal Transportation Policy Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. This article is cross-posted from his blog on Switchboard.

This map, developed by the FTA, shows where rainfall and sea changes (color shading) intersect with transit systems (the dots). Image: FTA via NRDC

The Boy Scout motto (“Be prepared”) should guide state transportation departments (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and transit agencies as we recover from the destruction Hurricane Sandy wreaked. This superstorm was deemed historic for transit right off the bat by Chairman Joseph Lhota of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA): “The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night.”

The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has already put thousands of “boots on the ground” to assess and address the damage to livelihoods, lives and property. As they do their jobs and FEMA taps into its multibillion-dollar fund for emergencies such as this, it’s worth recalling advice the agency gives regarding prevention: Each dollar invested in hazard mitigation saves four dollars in avoided damage costs.

I learned this advice from a report prepared about a year ago by Tina Hodges when she was at the Federal Transit Administration (she recently moved down the hall to the much bigger Federal Highway Administration): “Flooded Bus Barns and Buckled Rails: Public Transportation and Climate Change Adaptation.” It’s one of several FTA resources that seem downright prescient right now, all available for download and perusal here.

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As we reported yesterday, MAP-21 went into effect just in time for Hurricane Sandy, allowing the Federal Transit Administration similar emergency grant-making authority as FHWA. But Adam Snider at Politico reminded us this morning that the change is easier said than done.

New York's MTA can get donations from other transit agencies, but the FTA's power to release emergency grants is hindered by Congressional budgeting processes. Photo: r/sandy @Imgur

While U.S. DOT released $13 million yesterday to New York and Rhode Island for road repairs, the agency says FTA experts will join FEMA to assess damages and “help direct transit agencies to available federal assistance programs.” Staff and equipment will also be donated by transit agencies that weren’t affected by the storm. But those emergency grants that FTA has the newly-minted power to make? Not coming yet.

Politico’s Snider explains why:

MAP-21 created a new “public transportation emergency relief program” that would let FTA make grants for operations, repairs, equipment and more after a natural disaster. But the [continuing resolution] passed by Congress in September extended funds from the previous DOT appropriations bill — which didn’t include the FTA emergency program because it didn’t exist yet. The bottom line: FTA can’t make emergency grants to the affected agencies along the East Coast, though several transit experts expected FEMA to help out (“…but that’s a long process,” one source wrote). Congress could always address the issue in a Sandy-related emergency appropriations package when members return in mid-November.

Mid-November is a long way away for cities and transit agencies struggling to restore mobility in the immediate aftermath of the storm. What good is emergency grant-making authority if you can’t use it in the event of an emergency?

Bike and pedestrian funding got slashed. Federal assistance for transit operations was rejected. Even the performance measures – arguably the high point of the recently passed federal transportation bill – are too weak to be very meaningful. For Americans who want federal policy to support safe streets, sustainable transportation, and livable neighborhoods, there were few bright spots in the transportation bill Congress passed last month.

AASHTO Director John Horsley is thrilled with the new transportation bill, which gave state DOTs just about everything they wanted. Photo: International Transport Forum

But state transportation departments are celebrating. They scored victory after victory, getting a bigger share of federal funding with fewer rules and regulations attached.

In the Senate, advocates were able to work some reforms into the bill and mobilize grassroots support for amendments like the Cardin-Cochran provision, which put funds for street safety projects in the hands of local governments, not state DOTs. But the House never managed to pass a bill of its own, and the opaque conference committee process was an exercise in horse-trading that advocates found difficult to penetrate.

The final product, which included measures like raising the federal contribution for certain highway expansions, seemed finely tailored to benefit DOTs in several ways. “This is a bill written by and for the benefit of state DOTs at the expense of both federal oversight and regional and community outcomes,” wrote David Burwell, director of the climate change program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in an email shortly after the bill passed. He said the policy changes “are too elegantly crafted and specific in their effect to have been written, or even conceived, by members of Congress or their staff.”

For state DOTs, access to lawmakers is a given. “We worked very closely with the House and Senate to craft those measures,” AASHTO Director John Horsley confirmed to Streetsblog in an interview yesterday. He said that while AASHTO offered recommendations, no text written by AASHTO made it into the bill verbatim, as far as he knows.

According to Horsley’s account, AASHTO followed a pretty standard script when it came to advocating for their interests on the Hill. Every stakeholder and special interest under the sun had its lobbyists knocking on lawmakers’ doors, offering their two cents – everyone from gravel producers to equipment manufacturers to environmentalists to free market fundamentalists. It’s just that the state DOTs seemed to get everything on their wish list.

Horsley said AASHTO had been laying the groundwork for many, many months before conference started, working with Republican House Transportation Committee staffers as well as aides of both parties in the Senate. (He didn’t mention working with House Democrats, who were shut out of the process from day one.)

The House is where the magic happened for AASHTO. “We’ve been very pleased with where the Senate bill started,” Horsley said. “And we were even more pleased when the House and the Senate in conference agreed to incorporate a lot of the House provisions that were even better for states.”

What were those House provisions? Horsley went through the list:

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The FTA has put out a helpful guide [PDF] to the changes to public transit policy in MAP-21, the new transportation bill that takes effect October 1. Three cheers to the agency for making the changes easy to see with their tracked-changes format.

What will the new transportation bill mean for transit? Photo: Daniel Schwen / Wikimedia

While there are a lot of adjustments within the transit section, overall this bill does not make major changes to national transit policy compared to its 2005 predecessor, known as SAFETEA-LU. Transit maintains its 20 percent share of funding, and the volume of funding remains the same. Transit will get about $10.6 billion per year.

Within the overall pot of transit funding, millions have been shuffled around in this bill, and we covered some of those bigger changes last week. This post will delve into some of the finer-grain changes that the FTA has helped to highlight with this document.

Consistent with other changes to the bill that put distance between transportation policy and any attempt to discern what would be good policy, the authors made some cosmetic changes that strike some pro-transit language from the law of the land.

The bill removes a whole section of SAFETEA-LU that stated the case for transit and made important points about the urbanization of the country, the potential damage to urban areas of unchecked congestion, the need to keep transit accessible to lower income individuals, the urgency of federal assistance to transit, and the fact that transit helps the country achieve the national goals of “improved air quality, energy conservation, international competitiveness, and mobility for elderly individuals, individuals with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged individuals in urban and rural areas of the United States.”

Here are a few other changes worth noting:
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