Streetsblog Capitol Hill

The FHWA applies the same design standards to city streets as to suburban arterial roads.

The Federal Highway Administration classifies roads as either “rural” or “urbanized.” But the “urbanized” label is deceptive, because it applies suburban street design standards to any street that isn’t rural. So if you live in, say, downtown St. Louis, the FHWA applies the same standards to your streets as to the streets in Orlando’s most distant suburbs. This contributes to a horrendous mismatch: Many city streets where walking should take precedence are in fact designed for moving massive amounts of traffic.

Now there’s a petition drive underway to change that. John Massengale, Victor Dover, and Richard Hall — a team of planners and architects that are involved with the Congress for New Urbanism — are circulating asking U.S. DOT to develop more city-friendly standards.

The trio recommends establishing separate standards for urban and suburban streets, introducing new priorities that place pedestrians first on city streets. From their letter to U.S. DOT:

The new standards for Urban Areas would be fundamentally different than the current Urbanized standards. Two-way streets, narrow traffic lanes, bicycle sharrows, and a prohibition on slip lanes and turn lanes would be the norm. In large cities, faster urban routes might be limited to broad boulevards and parkways. Small-town residential streets and Main Streets would be similarly transformed, according to their context.

The team calls their proposal a “simple but powerful idea could transform America’s streets and make our neighborhoods, cities and towns more walkable.” As of this afternoon, the petition needs only about 60 signatures to reach the goal of 500 supporters.

On Thursday, U.S. DOT announced the 47 people who will make up the new Freight Advisory Committee, tasked with coming up with a cohesive, strategic vision around freight movement in the United States. Freight crosses state lines and travels on every mode imaginable, but there is no national agency to coordinate all this movement of goods, resulting in a chaotic and fragmented approach divided among several decision-making bodies. With any luck, the new advisory committee will attach some smart national priorities to freight movement and set policy accordingly.

California Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal is just one of the 47 members of the U.S. DOT Freight Advisory Committee that gets high marks from transportation reformers. Photo: Everything Long Beach

If controlled by the existing modal agencies within U.S. DOT, the conversation about freight can too easily work backwards: deciding first that the solution is highways, for example, and then figuring out how to match that with the problem. Shipping freight by rail and inland waterways can often be a far more efficient and less polluting way to move goods, while taking trucks off congested roadways.

The committee will also have to avoid the pitfalls that come with the expansion of the Panama Canal and the supposed freight “tsunami” that is going to come crashing down on U.S. shores. While all of the country’s west coast ports can already handle bigger ships, many east coast ports are in panic mode, worried that they either need to spend millions on dredging or get left behind. If these decisions are left to the states, there will be a lot of unnecessary spending. But if decisions can be made with national priorities in mind, the country can decide which – if any – east coast ports need to be deepened and save the money on the rest. With any luck, the people named to the U.S. DOT freight advisory committee will be dispassionate enough to make those calls.

And there’s good reason to think they’ll make smart calls. The committee includes many advocates for multimodalism and livability. “[It’s] nice to see some solid academics and advocates in here, that states are represented by more than just DOTs, and that cities are so strongly represented,” said Deron Lovaas of NRDC. “This stacks the group strongly in favor of robust debate and balanced recommendations. I hope their deliberations capitalize on this good setup.”

Joshua Schank of the Eno Center for Transportation agreed that it is a “very impressive group,” while adding that it is “a bit heavy on existing stakeholders” — shipping companies and trade groups who represent the freight industry. He said that while “real change demands an outside, more objective presence from groups that do not stand to benefit from DOT decisions,” stakeholder buy-in is necessary to “move the ball.”

To pull out a few of the brightest stars:

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard was an unexpected favorite at this year’s National Bike Summit. A Republican, Ballard created the city’s first Office of Sustainability ever and is working to bring bike-share to the city. He’s not the only person representing cities on this panel: Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton, and Stacey Hodge from NYCDOT all bring an urban perspective. Anyone else putting together a big panel on freight might load it full of state DOT heads, but U.S. DOT only named two: Ann Schneider of Illinois DOT and Mike Tooley from Montana.

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4:29: Hearing adjourned. Rockefeller: “I adjourn this hearing on the supposition that you will ride the fast rail right into the secretaryship.”

4:27: Thune: We also can’t continue to borrow from general fund to fund highways. Either we need to find a way to pay for it or we need to cut our appetites. Can’t just keep borrowing from our children and grandchildren.  I hope you and the president will lead and put specific ideas on the table. Infrastructure is important. Best way to avoid deficits and debt is to grow the economy.

4:23: Rockefeller: We’re going to have to spend money and no one wants to talk about it. Because as soon as you talk about it, your opponents will find someone to run against you. You have to goad us. If you can’t do something because you don’t have the money to do it, tell us. Express your frustration. Safety inspections, next-gen shouldn’t be sacrificed because we don’t have the money.

4:22: Rockefeller is on a roll, but I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Now talking about hospital bathrooms and the international space station (re: MRSA). He’s already ordered Foxx not to respond to what he’s saying. He’s very poetic but sort of rambly.

4:20 Rockefeller: “I want you to be a good secretary of transportation. And you can’t do that without revenue.” Your predecessor just went around saying whatever he wanted. Great to talk about infrastructure bank, but private sector will invest if federal government does.

4:16: Rockefeller: Fear of next primary is destroying the country. You’re being told to eliminate all rules and regulations, don’t do any tolls, raise no revenues — by simply avoiding waste, fraud and abuse. Hypocrisy. “You can’t minimize yourself into greatness.”

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The Partnership for Sustainable Communities has had a rough couple of years. The program got zeroed out of the 2012 budget, and the 2013 budget is just a carbon copy of 2012. But they’re looking to make a comeback.

The Partnership's Regional Planning Grants -- before Congress de-funded them -- supported sustainability efforts like Chicago's "GO TO 2040" regional plan. Image: CMAP

The three-agency partnership celebrates its fourth anniversary in June. In those four years, the collaborative effort among U.S. DOT, HUD, and EPA has entrenched and strengthened the Obama administration’s multi-disciplinary approach to smart growth, weaving together transportation, housing, and environmental policy. The partnership’s grants and technical assistance have helped transform communities and make them more economically and environmentally resilient.

In that vein, HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities — the mothership of the whole program — is becoming the Office of Economic Resilience, embedded within an existing HUD program called Community Planning and Development. That could help preserve the sustainability work, since it’ll now be part of a program that Congress hasn’t targeted for cuts.

Politics aside, Shelley Poticha, the director of the program, said the move is designed to comply with two requests from Congress: 1) a name that more accurately reflects what the grants are for, and 2) to embed their approach throughout the agency to leverage other formula funding.

And that may be the true significance of the move. The office is increasingly setting the tone for the way the entire agency does business, and how it spends its entire $47.6 billion budget. (That’s what it’s requested for 2014, anyway – it’s $10 billion more than the agency will spend this year.)

As we reported last year, the three agencies were already bringing sustainability into the heart of their work. The six principles of livability they’ve agreed on don’t just govern the grants given by the Office of Housing and Sustainable Communities; they’ve become the guiding philosophy behind much of the agencies’ work  – and other agencies, like NOAA and USDA, are tagging along for the ride, too.

So there are lots of good reasons to better enmesh the sustainability office in the agency. Besides, Poticha said, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan had always planned for the sustainability office to “find the most appropriate home within the agency among the core program offices.” She also said the larger staff network will allow them greater flexibility and additional capacity than the small office they have now.

The Regional Planning and Community Challenge grant programs, administered by HUD with the collaboration of the other two agencies, are being rolled into one budget item, a $75 million grant program now called Integrated Planning and Investment Grants. HUD officials are still unclear whether they’ll continue to separate that into two programs or leave it as one.

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Yesterday, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center invited six former transportation secretaries to talk about the possibilities of presidential influence over transportation and to give advice to Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, whose nomination for the job was announced that same day.

James Burnley (1987-1989, under Reagan):

“His challenge is to establish his leadership as early as he can as secretary. That’s particularly important because he’s coming from out of town.”

While the surface transportation doesn’t come up until next year, the issues are so complex, he needs to put his stamp on it early on.

Andrew Card (1992-1993, under Bush 41):

“Bring peripheral vision to the job, knowing that there are a lot of people with tunnel vision that are already at the Department of Transportation. Trust those people with tunnel vision, but know that tunnel vision doesn’t always get the job done.”

The vast majority of career employees are there for the right reasons, to do a good job. Don’t view them skeptically.

Norman Mineta (2001-2006, under Bush 43):

“Here’s a person who gets parachuted in from local government and he really has to rely on that building full of professionals. Seek the best advice from the bureaucracy.”

“He’s been innovative; he’s shown leadership. Those two qualities will serve him well.”

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Mayor Anthony Foxx has accepted President Obama's nomination to be the next U.S. DOT secretary. Photo: Flickr/psychoticwolf via Smart Growth America

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx just accepted President Obama’s nomination to be the next transportation secretary.

Before we get into the details of Anthony Foxx’s résumé and policy positions, let’s just take a moment to appreciate this: The White House has nominated a mayor to be secretary of transportation.

There is often a wide gulf between states and cities when it comes to transportation policy — with cities preferring to invest in multiple modes while states mainly spend on highways. One way to interpret Obama’s nomination of a mayor to head U.S. DOT is that he’s casting his lot with cities. In Foxx, he’s selected the chief executive of a southern city that has made significant progress on transit and walkable development the last few years.

“I know every mayor is thrilled today because one of theirs will become transportation secretary,” outgoing Secretary Ray LaHood said at Foxx’s nomination today. He said the appointment sent a message that “mayors count” and “cities count.”

“When Anthony became mayor in 2009, Charlotte, like the rest of the country, was going through a bruising economic crisis,” President Obama said. “But the city has managed to turn things around.  The economy is growing. There are more jobs, more opportunity. And if you ask Anthony how that happened, he’ll tell you that one of the reasons is that Charlotte made one of the largest investments in transportation in the city’s history.”

Foxx has only been mayor since 2009, and the city was already heading in the right direction. Charlotte’s light-rail system, LYNX, launched in 2007, and its complete streets policy won an award before he took office. But Foxx has also made his own mark.

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TIGER funding by mode. Image: Eno

This article is the second of a two-part series about how U.S. DOT’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program — TIGER, a discretionary grant program that got its start under the Recovery Act in 2009 — has made transportation planning more strategic, based on a benefit-cost analysis and national goals. Read the first part here, about Republicans’ empty charges of political bias. 

U.S. DOT has committed to maintaining geographic equity and a set-aside of roughly a quarter of each TIGER grant cycle to rural areas. (The Eno Center for Transportation, which just released a report on lessons learned from the TIGER experience [PDF], notes that that commitment has probably also been the key to making the program politically sustainable.) But as always, there’s a problem of definitions. What qualifies as rural? Should grantors strive to give equally to each of the four traditional regions, or should grant amounts be proportionate to population?

In the end, DOT tried to be equitable to the four regions, by population, within a range of 12 percent. But maybe it shouldn’t really matter who lives in a certain area as long as the benefits of a project are spread out? For example, freight projects like the CREATE program — a freight rail project in Chicago — benefit the whole country, not just the community they’re located in.

And freight has been a big winner with TIGER, winning nearly a third of TIGER funds throughout the four grant cycles – something U.S. DOT officials wouldn’t have guessed would happen at the outset. But freight is often a perfect candidate for discretionary federal grants. Complex, interconnected, intermodal freight projects that move commerce have “elements that really don’t fit inside the tidy boxes that state DOT are able to deal with,” said Leslie Blakey, executive director of the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors. The focus on national and regional significance is one area where states fail, as they are only in tune with their own needs, not the needs of the whole country.

It’s not just TIGER: MAP-21 has gotten U.S. DOT to focus on freight in a way it never has before, and Congress is following suit, holding the first hearing yesterday of a newly-appointed special panel on freight. But TIGER led the way, bringing together various modal agencies to think strategically and holistically about the freight system. Though TIGER had limited funds to work with, the emphasis on intermodalism was a rare and necessary prerequisite for a useful conversation about freight.

Freight is also a prime example of the way TIGER funding can fill in the gaps between public and private funding. Private investment is “naturally part of the freight system,” according to Blakey, in a way that isn’t necessarily true of other areas of surface transportation. The private sector may be willing to fund the lion’s share of a freight project but doesn’t want to invest in certain elements that are purely for public benefit. That’s an ideal place for TIGER to fit in – to cover just a portion, in partnership with private investors.

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Is two seconds enough time for this guy to avoid hitting the child in front of his car? Image: Fast Lane

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s signature issue has been distracted driving. He’s spent the last four years amplifying the heartbreaking voices of those who have suffered the consequences of this highly dangerous habit. The stories of the needless loss of so many people, especially children and teens, are tragic.

Clearly, it’s time to take decisive action to stop distracted driving.

But apparently it’s not clear to everyone. Automakers have only upped the distraction ante, putting touch screens in their cars with more and more features — GPS, fuel efficiency monitoring, audio and climate controls, limitless apps, and finally, social media. How did we ever live without making dinner reservations or updating our Facebook status while driving?

And how do our anti-distraction heroes at U.S. DOT respond? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is issuing a short list of voluntary guidelines they’re asking carmakers to adopt, to discourage “the introduction of excessively distracting devices in vehicles.”

Remember the good old days, when drivers' only distractions were fiddling with the radio dial and telling kids they weren't there yet? Photo: Fast Lane

In LaHood’s words, they include:

• Limiting — to 2 seconds at a time and 12 seconds total — the time drivers must take their eyes off the road to operate in-car technology;
• Disabling texting, social media, and web browsing features unless a vehicle is stopped and in park; and
• Disabling video-based calling and conferencing unless a vehicle is stopped and in park.

According to Distraction.gov, a project of U.S. DOT, the 4.6 seconds it takes to send or read a text message is long enough to drive the length of entire football field at 55 mph, and looking at your phone is like driving that football field blindfolded. “It’s extraordinarily dangerous,” the website says. But NHTSA’s two second rule still accepts the idea of drivers speeding down almost half a football field blindfolded.

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When the buzz about a new, stimulus-funded, discretionary transportation grant program started to circulate in 2009, some environmentalists opposed it. They worried it would be a slush fund for the Federal Highway Administration, used to build unnecessary roads that would aggravate sprawl and pollution. But insiders knew that wasn’t how the new Obama administration would be handling things.

The CREATE freight rail project, funded by TIGER I and II, will relieve costly bottlenecks in Chicago -- but will benefit the entire country. Photo: Eno

TIGER, the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program, has been praised from the left, right, and center for rewarding innovation, leveraging scarce dollars, breaking down modal silos, and funding non-traditional projects that don’t fit well under formulas.

Though Republicans have sometimes grumbled that the program has merely replaced Congressional earmarks with “administration earmarks,” or that it’s rewarded Democratic districts, they’ve continued to approve funding for the program. Even as House members have zeroed out high-speed rail funding for each of the last three years, they’ve gone along with five separate appropriations for TIGER without too much fuss.

Yesterday, the Eno Center for Transportation released a paper [PDF] investigating what TIGER has done well, what challenges remain, and what could be improved.

How TIGER changed the way states think about project planning

TIGER blew open the traditional processes for funding transportation. Rather than just submitting a list of projects on the wish list and getting formula funds in return, grantees had to pick their best projects with the greatest benefits; after the first round of grants they also had to have at least a 20 percent match from state, local, or private interests. TIGER has transformed the way transportation officials think, even beyond the grantees – failed applicants have sometimes gone back and tweaked projects, brought in new partners, lowered costs, and improved plans. TIGER has helped transportation officials around the country see a new, more strategic way to plan and carry out projects – a method that is beginning to be expected at the federal level.

Plus, state DOTs aren’t the only entities eligible to apply for TIGER grants – MPOs, port authorities, and transit agencies can apply on their own, too.

The intermodalism of the program has encouraged U.S. DOT to hasten the process of breaking down its own “modal silos” as well, with people from different modal agencies working together to select projects. Intermodalism is also a challenge: It’s not easy to compare a bike trail to a freight rail project or a highway interchange – they are judged on completely different metrics – but DOT has sought to choose the best projects put before them. And, as U.S. DOT Undersecretary Polly Trottenberg said at Eno’s panel discussion yesterday, of all the criticism of the program, there’s been almost no criticism of the individual projects they’ve selected.

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From the beginning of today’s hearing, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee made it clear they weren’t going to let Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s last appearance before them be an easy one. While the hearing’s purpose was to examine the department’s budget request, the tough questions LaHood fielded on the budget were nothing compared to the fight one lawmaker picked about the Columbia River Crossing.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler wants to take light rail out of the Columbia River Crossing.

Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Tom Latham derided the administration request for $50 billion for “immediate transportation investments” as “a proposal we’ve seen three times before” which, like the 2009 stimulus package, is “not paid for or offset by reductions elsewhere.” He dismissed the plan to pay for transportation with war savings as “dubious,” saying, “Many members hope that the drawdown of our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan will provide an opportunity to reduce spending and the deficit, and not serve as excuse for even more spending.”

LaHood told Latham he “can’t have it both ways.”

“The first two years I was in this job you all criticized us for not coming up with a way to fund transportation,” LaHood said. “For the last two years, after receiving criticism for the first two years, for no funding, we’ve come up with a funding mechanism.”

Even worse than defending a gimmicky pay-for, LaHood tied himself in knots promising the U.S. DOT “has never promoted building anything to get anywhere faster.” He defended this position when it came to the Columbia River Crossing in the Portland area, which Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler raked him over the coals for, and even for high-speed rail, which he pledged was not actually about increasing speeds. A weird position, indeed.

Latham noted that the administration budget proposal included $40 billion for rail and wondered when the administration might send over a draft proposal of the rail reauthorization those numbers are based on. He reminded LaHood that the administration never actually sent a draft surface transportation reauthorization.

LaHood tried to turn the tables on Latham, saying the president was busy with guns, immigration and the sequester, and when Congress does its work on those three issues, Obama will bring out his bold plans for transportation. LaHood has made this argument before, and it’s one I find perplexing. Isn’t that why there are Cabinet secretaries, with thousands of people working under them? No one at DOT is working on guns and immigration, but I bet someone there has a pretty good handle on their plans for the next rail bill.

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