Streetsblog Capitol Hill

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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Source: ThinkProgress

From the Drivers-Don’t-Pay-Their-Own-Way Department…

ThinkProgress has done some sleuthing and found that seven Tea Party freshmen, who came to Congress on a platform of strict frugality and deficit reduction, have been sticking taxpayers with the bill for their own personal cars. These are some of the same people who hijacked the transportation bill conference process by speechifying about spending when hardworking Hill staff were up nights trying to make compromises.

Chip Cravaack drove this "War Wagon" during the campaign and appears to still require a large set of wheels for his own personal use -- at taxpayer expense. Image from Cravaack's Facebook page

There’s nothing illegal about it, as ThinkProgress reporter Scott Keyes says, “but it smacks of hypocrisy for Tea Partiers like [Sean] Duffy who promised to ‘lead by example‘ when it comes to deficit reduction.” Remember, these cars are for personal use, not for traveling on Congressional business — although Duffy released a statement in response to the ThinkProgress report claiming the vehicle he leased is a converted minibus that he uses to get around his congressional district as a “Mobile Office.”

The hardest pill to swallow here is that the Tea Party rep who’s billing the public most extravagantly for his hot wheels is none other than Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) — the guy who defeated transportation reform hero James Oberstar in the 2010 election. [NOTE: It's been brought to my attention that Cravaack isn't actually a member of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, though he was elected with wide Tea Party support, endorsed by Tea Party Express, and says Tea Party values "are pretty much what my values are, too."]

He’s racking up more than $1,000 a month in expenses for his 2011 Chevy Equinox, a crossover SUV with all-wheel drive.

Since Tea Party adherents tend to favor policies that basically require everyone to own a car, shouldn’t these guys already have their own wheels?

In the immediate, panicked moments after the MAP-21 conference report was released, I missed some of the nuances of just how bad a deal this bill is for bike policy.

Under the new transpo bill, the fight to get states to invest in infrastructure for biking and walking will get a lot tougher. Photo: Jim Hash / Ped Bike Images

Three things stand out:

• States can use their Transportation Alternatives (TA) money on anything they want.
• Bike/ped programs are facing anywhere from a 33 percent cut in funding to a 66 percent cut, depending how each state reacts.
• The mandatory sidepath law was included.

Let’s start with Number Three. The law states that if there’s a paved bike path within 100 yards of a federally owned road, cyclists have to use it — given the speed limit on the road is at least 30 miles per hour. When this was first included in the Senate bill last fall, bike advocates called it “paternalistic” and said it ignores cyclists’ fundamental right to the road.

“If the path is any good, you shouldn’t have to force anyone to use it; they will use it voluntarily because it works,” wrote Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. Unfortunately, he said, many paths are “dangerous, slow, and out of the way” – and cyclists would still be forced to use them under this law.

The concerns were partially addressed between this provision’s appearance in the Senate bill and the final conference report. It now states explicitly that cyclists are prohibited from using the road unless “the bicycle level of service on that roadway is rated B or higher.” So, if the road is more bikeable than the sidepath, in some instances, the cyclist can choose the road.

However, there’s no uniform way of measuring how bike-friendly a roadway is. The FHWA has developed a measurement for “bicycle level of service” but it’s not universally utilized. Besides, I wouldn’t count on every cyclist knowing the rating of every roadway they ride on.

Advocates’ concern about being forced off of streets and onto shoddy paths remains.

Three Ways States Can Filch Bike/Ped Money

On to the funding “transferability” in the Transportation Alternatives section, which now includes bike and pedestrian funding. If you’ll recall, half of TA money gets distributed, proportionally to population, to metropolitan planning agencies or local governments. The other half is supposed to capitalize a grant program in each state, to be overseen by their DOTs, allowing municipalities to apply for the funds.

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In the highly polarized and antagonistic transportation bill negotiations, dragged out over the course of almost a year, there was one thing that Democrats and Republicans could agree on: vastly expanding the TIFIA loan program. The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program has, since 1998, provided federal credit assistance at favorable interest rates to surface transportation projects of national and regional significance.

San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center got a $171 million TIFIA loan in 2010. Will new rules make it harder for visionary projects like this to compete? Image: Archithings

Under the new bill, however, it appears any old highway plan will do.

MAP-21, the transportation bill that is now on its way to the president for his signature, turned TIFIA from a $122 million program to a $1 billion program – and at the same time, made it completely useless as an instrument to reward and enable innovation.

The bill eliminated all project selection criteria from the TIFIA program. It’s now first-come-first-served.

“By removing those selection criteria, they’ve basically turned the federal government into a bank,” said Sarah Kline, director of policy for Reconnecting America, “instead of an entity with national policy in mind.”

TIFIA used to employ the following criteria to evaluate potential loan recipients:

• national or regional significance (including livability, economic competitiveness, and safety) — 20 percent
• private participation — 20 percent
• environmental sustainability and state of good repair — 20 percent
• whether the loan would help accelerate project delivery — 12.5 percent
• creditworthiness — 12.5 percent
• use of technology — 5 percent
• consumption of budget authority — 5 percent
• whether the loan would reduce the need for federal grants — 5 percent

Under the new bill, creditworthiness now accounts for pretty much the full 100 percent.

Projects will still need to be approved by the U.S. DOT credit council. “They’re not rubberstamping things that come through,” said Kerry O’Hare, vice president of Building America’s Future and a former FHWA administrator.  “There’s a real financial analysis that’s done. People don’t just willy-nilly say, ‘We’re going to sign off on this.’”

But the credit council is looking only at the ability to repay loans. Not sustainability, not significance, not economic competitiveness.

“The federal government essentially has no control over what kind of projects get built,” Kline said. “As long as you come in with an application that is technically eligible and meets the credit-worthiness, it’s not clear to me that the federal government can say, ‘No, this is not the kind of project we want to fund; we’re looking for things that are innovative; this is not innovative.’”

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The House of Representatives approved the transportation bill conference report this afternoon by a vote of 373 to 52. [UPDATE 4:00 PM: The Senate has also approved the bill, 74-19.] This is a bill that’s been called “a death blow to mass transit” by the Amalgamated Transit Union, “a step backwards for America’s transportation system” by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, “a retreat from the goals of sustainability and economic resiliency” by Reconnecting America, “a substantial capitulation” by Transportation for America, and “bad news for biking and walking” by America Bikes.

Remember the empty highways that symbolized the House Republicans' vision of America's transportation system? The final transpo bill might as well have the same unfortunate cover.

After more than 1,000 days of waiting since the last transportation bill expired, the nation’s new transportation policy is a grave disappointment to people seeking to reform the current highway-centric system.

The fact that the House GOP tried and, for the most part, failed to reverse the progress made under presidents Reagan and Bush the elder offers a small degree of consolation. “Some of the worst ideas pushed initially by House Republicans went nowhere – funding the highway system with new oil drilling revenues, taking transit out of the highway trust fund, de-federalizing transportation funding – to mention some of the most radical proposals that were seriously being put forward,” wrote Deron Lovaas of NRDC this morning. “But… that pretty much exhausts the good news.”

So what does the bill actually do? Overall, it doesn’t change a whole lot, and the most significant changes tend not to benefit livable streets or sustainable transportation. Here’s a breakdown.

Length and funding. The bill lasts a year longer than the Senate bill would have, expiring at the end of September 2014. That gives states, cities, and the construction industry substantially more stability and allows them to move forward on projects that have been delayed for years because of the uncertainty surrounding federal funding. It maintains funding levels at around $54 billion a year, as did the Senate bill, which is roughly current levels plus inflation.

While some have criticized the complex funding mechanisms that prop it up and its departure from a user-pays model, the Congressional Budget Office reported this morning that the bill actually reduces the deficit by $16.3 billion.

Everyone seems to understand that Congress won’t be able to pull this kind of magic for long and will soon have to deal with the long-term insufficiency of current Highway Trust Fund revenues to cover the nation’s transportation needs. However, the gas tax was not raised, and at the same time the House passed this bill, it also approved an appropriations bill that prohibits even studying the possibility of moving toward a VMT fee.

Non-transportation-related items. The Keystone XL pipeline and the EPA’s ability to regulate coal ash as a hazardous substance, introduced into the transportation negotiations by the House Republicans, were stripped out of the bill. The RESTORE Act to spend BP oil spill fines on Gulf Coast restoration is included.

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Here’s the latest transpo bill news that has filtered through the tight little seams in the armor around the conference committee.

Rep. DeFazio reports that there's a "deal" in the works to allow road widening to go forward, free of pesky things like public comments or environmental reviews. Photo: WyEast

First of all, the House voted last night on the two motions to instruct we mentioned last week: Rep. Diane Black’s criminally bad idea to cancel out important incentives for states to enact distracted driver laws, and Rep. Steny Hoyer’s pretty reasonable request that the House just vote on the Senate bill already.

Knowing what you know of the way Congress is working these days, I bet you know which one passed and which one failed.

That’s right, Hoyer’s motion failed 172 to 225, and Rep. Black’s plan to let more people die so that teens can text passed 201-194. O democracy, you are a cruel master. The good thing is that none of this is binding, as is evidenced by the fact that the House gave its thunderous approval to a motion to wrap up work by last Friday and it’s now Wednesday and, uh, there is no wrap on this work.

Which brings us to the next two MTIs the House will consider. One is from Rep. Mark Critz (D-PA) exhorting the conference to finish work by tomorrow, since they crashed their previous deadline. That motion will be voted on… tomorrow.

And Rep. Janice Hahn (D-CA) has a motion to preserve the language in the Senate bill creating a national freight program, complete with a strategic plan and policy, including goals to reduce environmental impacts, improve state of good repair, and improve the economic efficiency of the freight network. If there’s a way to kill such a sensible motion, I’m sure the House will find it. The freight program, we hear, has been one of many points of contention in the conference.

Hahn is also sponsoring a “Dear Colleague” letter urging her fellow lawmakers to support the Cardin-Cochran language in the Senate bill, allowing for some local control of federal dollars for transportation projects that make streets safer for walking and biking. The letter is co-authored by fellow California Democrat Lois Capps.

Meanwhile, Rep. Peter DeFazio, a stalwart champion of biking and walking, says he’s seen “very specific language there that they’ve gutted enhancements.” Whether it’s called Transportation Enhancements, Additional Activities, or Transportation Alternatives, he’s referring to the pot of money that funds bike/ped projects. DeFazio told Politico there’s bad news for environmental and community protections, too:
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UPDATE: The final bill contained a $2.4 billion transfer from Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund to the Highway Trust Fund in June 2012 and three transfers from the General Fund to the Highway Trust Fund, totaling $18.8 billion. They were: $6.2 billion to the Highway Account of HTF in October 2012; $10.4 billion transfer to Highway Account of HTF in October 2013; and $2.2 billion transfer to Mass Transit Account of HTF in October 2013. They dropped the car tariffs change and the gas guzzler transfer. They replaced those smaller transfers and offsets with the pension provisions and a tiny bit from the roll-your-own-cigarettes change.

Congressional leaders announced opaquely last week that they’d “moved forward” on a deal on the highway section of the transportation bill. That means transit, rail, and safety programs are still being negotiated. And it means the financing of the bill hasn’t yet gotten the seal of approval from the House.

What do roll-your-own cigarette machines have to do with surface transportation? Photo: News Herald

Still, both houses of Congress have agreed to spend more on the transportation bill than the Highway Trust Fund itself can bear. (The House gave its green light a couple weeks ago when it nixed the Broun motion to keep transportation spending to HTF receipt levels.) To overspend the HTF but still plausibly deny that they’re deficit-spending, the Senate Finance Committee has done some pretty fancy footwork to offset the expenditures with other savings.

Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) squeezed blood from the stone of the U.S. budget, and many of his colleagues have lauded him as a miracle worker. But Taxpayers for Common Sense – and lots of other people with common sense – say the numbers don’t really add up. The information below comes from TCS’s report, released last week, on the Senate pay-fors.

Stick with me here – this is all a little convoluted, but understanding the funding is a key part of the process. While the Senate transportation bill may be a good stop-gap compared to the option of even shorter extensions, a look at the funding shows why it provides no long-term answers to the question of how to pay for transportation.

The sources of new Highway Trust Fund revenue Baucus et al came up with are:

A transfer from the general fund: $4.97 billion. This is the most obvious example of deficit spending – just taking money from the Treasury to pay for transportation. That’s on top of $34.5 billion the Treasury has already coughed up in the last four years to bail out the Highway Trust Fund – something no one wanted to repeat.

Dedication of imported car tariffs to the Highway Trust Fund: $4.52 billion. This revenue would no longer go to the general fund.

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House Speaker John Boehner spoke to reporters yesterday morning. His message: “Republicans Relentlessly Focused on Jobs.”

John Boehner says there will be no more flowers on his watch. Photo: Human Flower Project

“House Republicans want to get a highway bill done,” he said. “We want a bill, and our colleagues are working toward producing a bill. We just want to make sure it’s a bill that includes real reforms, to ensure that taxpayer funds are paying for legitimate projects that support economic activity – not planting more flowers and beautification projects around the country.”

Of course, Boehner is hiding behind the “no flower” argument to mask the House GOP’s real objective — dismantling the Senate transportation bill’s provisions for street safety programs, which are funded from the same pot as “scenic beautification” projects. The GOP’s true target — the Cardin-Cochran amendment — gives local agencies control over funds from programs to make streets safer for walking and biking, including Safe Routes to School and Transportation Enhancements. Those funds go toward transportation projects that save people money, reduce congestion, improve air quality, and combat obesity.

Not only does that money go a long way in terms of building infrastructure and getting results, it also produces more construction jobs per dollar than highway spending. So maybe Boehner is not really focused on jobs — “Relentlessly Focused on Fossil Fuels” is more like it. In his comments, Boehner added that the House GOP also supports “bipartisan, job-creating initiatives like the Keystone pipeline” — which is expected to create about 6,000 jobs. (Hardly enough to have a real impact on the nation’s unemployment, when last month’s job growth of 69,000 was considered extremely weak.)

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Rep. James Lankford, a Tea Party Republican representing Oklahoma City, probably wasn’t responsible for any of the 118 pedestrian deaths in his district between 2001 to 2010. And it’s unlikely Rep. Steve Southerland of Panama City, Florida was behind the wheel when any of the 164 people were killed while walking in his district during the decade.

From 2001 to 2010, 118 people were killed while walking in Rep. James Lankford's district -- a death toll he can reduce with one vote. Photo: U.S. Congress

But they are two of eight freshmen on the transportation conference committee, and their vote over the next few days could mean that those appalling numbers go up — or down.

To remind members of what’s at stake with this transportation bill, Transportation for America has released an addendum to its groundbreaking “Dangerous by Design” report, this time quantifying the death toll by Congressional district. Everyone who cares about safe streets can now be very specific when asking their representatives to support a transportation bill with the Cardin-Cochran amendment to keep at least some bike-ped funding control at the local level.

“Having saddled communities with unsafe streets, it would be the height of cruelty for Congress now to take away resources and latitude from local communities trying to improve those conditions and save lives,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America, in a statement.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has taken a different position than his representative, James Lankford. Cornett is a vocal supporter of local control over funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects. He co-authored an op-ed recently asking Congress to restore Safe Routes to School and Transportation Enhancements funding. “Many of the more dangerous roads for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists alike in our communities are federal-aid highways,” he wrote. “House leaders have said fixing these unsafe conditions is a local problem, or a frill we can do without. We strongly disagree, and we urge them to restore dedicated funds for this purpose.”

Last January, a retired minister was killed while crossing the street after attending a college basketball game in Bethany, Oklahoma. He was one of Rep. Lankford’s constituents.

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Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. John Mica just released this statement:

The conferees have moved forward toward a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on a highway reauthorization bill.  Both House and Senate conferees will continue to work with a goal of completing a package by next week.

From what we’re hearing, whatever deal they’ve reached only applies to the EPW portion on highways. That means transit and rail are still pending an agreement, as are the hot-button issues like Keystone, coal ash, and environmental reviews. But bike-ped funding is part of the highways section, so with any luck, we’ll have word soon on whether the Cardin-Cochran amendment has survived. The amendment provides for some limited local control over funding for small-scale transportation projects.