Streetsblog Capitol Hill

House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) said this morning that getting permission from Republican leadership to find more revenues to fund the transportation bill was a “major breakthrough” but still won’t say where the money will come from.

Rep. John Mica won't be specific about where additional transportation funding could come from. Photo: 13 News

Mica told an audience at a Washington Post-sponsored forum on transportation that passing yet another extension of the surface transportation reauthorization persuaded leadership that there would not be consensus on a long-term bill until the spending levels were raised. “There wont be a gas tax increase,” Mica said, “but our leadership has asked us to look for other sources of revenue, and we’re on that mission now.”

“Speaker Boehner has really opened the door to us to look for any responsible means” to fund the bill, Mica said, adding that a gas tax increase is still off the table. “There’s also the possibility of doing away with it; adopting something else.” He wouldn’t specify what the replacement fee could be.

Nor would he say what he thinks of a Republican proposal to fund the bill with revenues from new oil drilling except to say, “We’re looking at it. We have some scoring issues. And then we have to make sure we have the votes.”

Mica said he was confident that a long-term bill would pass in March. “Don’t let anybody talk about a two-year transportation bill; that’s criminal,” he said. His counterpart in the Senate, Barbara Boxer, has proposed a two-year bill, but could be willing to go along with a longer-term bill if funding levels were raised.

Mica also reiterated his support for state infrastructure banks, saying he prefers them to a national bank. He said the way Washington works is: “the biggest gorillas get the most bananas.” Instead of having big guys compete for big loans from a big national bank, he said, “the best way to prioritize projects is to have them evolve from local level, get local and state participation, and then assist them.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also addressed the Washington Post gathering. He said he was confident that, despite current gridlock, there was enough pressure on Congress to create jobs that they’ll pass some form of transportation bill this year.

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LaHood, flanked by NYC Transpo Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, lauds the NACTO bike guide. Photo: Darren Flusche, League of American Bicyclists

If Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has anything to say about it, every transportation planner in the country should have a shiny new engineering guide on his or her bookshelf.

It’s been six months since the National Association of City Transportation Officials released the Urban Bikeways Design Guide in an online format. Yesterday, LaHood was among the first to hold the print edition in his very-excited hands, providing a ringing endorsement for its widespread adoption.

It would have been a bittersweet moment, coming only hours after LaHood told reporters that he would be a one-term transportation secretary – if the attendees had heard the news by then, which most of them hadn’t.

Before the most bike-friendly transportation secretary in U.S. history took the podium, another groundbreaking policymaker — Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City Transportation Commissioner — set the stage. Sadik-Khan is more than the architect of NYC’s next-gen bike infrastructure; she’s also the president of NACTO. So, she proudly raised a copy and called the guide a compendium of “everything you need to know to bring world-class bikeways to city streets.”

With American cities constantly struggling to implement cycling facilities that have long been the norm in Europe, NACTO created the guide to speed adoption of bicycling infrastructure by speaking directly to planners and engineers in their specialized technical lingo. By compiling a manual written by American city officials, for American city officials, Sadik-Khan said, the guide will give cash-strapped municipalities the certainty they need to view cycling facilities as proven traffic applications, not costly experiments. By putting all the engineering specs on paper, she added, it will help cities move beyond the rigid design standards that have limited bike infrastructure in the past.

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It’s no fireside chat, but Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been doing a series of video “dialogues” with people who submit questions online. Today’s installment is all about livability: one person asks what USDOT is doing to improve and expand bicycle infrastructure, another expresses excitement about high-speed rail expansion and asks about LaHood’s personal transportation habits, and another wants to know why all cars aren’t getting 60 miles to the gallon already.

If your roads are congested, your bus lines are getting cut, and money is flowing to brand-new roads to nowhere, don’t blame your mayor. Chances are, he or she is as mad about it as you are. Mayors are speaking out against ineffective transportation funding mechanisms that direct scarce resources to sprawling highways and away from urban transit and safer streets for walking and biking.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said mayors want investment in transit and active transportation -- not highway expansion. Photo courtesy of U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“Mayors are on the front lines of building livable and sustainable communities,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said this morning at the National Press Club. “We are where hope meets the street.”

He was talking about a new survey of 176 mayors showing that 93 percent of mayors want greater control over federal transportation dollars, which normally flow through the states, shortchanging metro areas.

In the words of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which sponsored the survey:

Metropolitan areas account for 86 percent of employment, 90 percent of wage income, and over the next 20 years, 94 percent of the nation’s economic growth, but they are saddled with the nation’s worst traffic jams, its oldest roads and bridges, and transit systems at capacity. Simply put, these areas are receiving significantly less in federal transportation investments than would reflect their role and importance to the nation’s economy.

With greater control over transportation resources, the mayors made it clear that they would have far different priorities than the states that usually hold the power. Specifically, mayors say they would invest in maintaining – not expanding – roads and bridges. Eighty percent say highway expansion should be a low priority. Mayor Reed said:

The reverse is true for public transit. Mayors identified the need to grow public transit capacity and operating assistance to meet the escalating demand for more public transit, rather than just simply maintaining what is already in place, and we know the sustainable attributes of public transit as well.

Three-fifths of mayors also said the lack of funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects was a problem. “These aren’t gimmicks anymore,” said Reed. “They’re part of a having a high quality of life in the cities where we live.”

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Bike planners, professional and amateur: Come and get it. The National Association of City Transportation Officials has released its Urban Bikeways Design Guide in digital format.

Bike boxes are one of the many innovative design treatments covered by NACTO's guide. Photo: NACTO

Now transportation planners can take advantage of a printable version in the traditional design guide format. NACTO officials hope transportation professionals around the country make a home for it on their bookshelves, next to the old standbys like the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and AASHTO’s Highway Safety Manual.

NACTO first released its design guide last month, cataloging the latest and greatest approaches to bicycle planning from Europe and the U.S.’s leading bicycle cities.

The guide was the result of a year of collaboration between transportation officials from 15 major US cities. It recognizes and standardizes innovative cycling treatments like bike boxes and cycle tracks — two methods that are on the rise in American cities but have yet to be enshrined in the standard toolbox of FHWA or AASHTO.

NACTO’s design guide was intended to provide authoritative guidance on these cycling treatments as their use spreads in the U.S., so that trail-blazing cities would not be forced to slog through duplicative research and experimentation.

Already the guide is helping communities around the country, said David Vega-Barachowitz a fellow at NACTO. The state of Washington has put forward legislation that permits local jurisdiction to use the “latest and best” cycling treatments, including those spelled out in the NACTO guide. Local governments in Washington were formerly limited to treatments that were contained in the state DOT’s design manual.

In the meantime, NACTO will be updating the web version of the guide to keep up with the latest advances in the field.

For decades, dueling camps of cycling advocates have feuded about how to best accommodate riders. Some have pushed for the construction of Dutch-style cycle tracks, arguing that separated lanes make bicycling safer and less intimidating, while others have insisted such infrastructure isolates riders and makes cycling more dangerous than simply remaining within the flow of traffic.

Why is Montreal outshining every U.S. city on cycle tracks? Photo: Richard Layman/RPUS

Though the debate has grown bitter at times, neither group has had much in the way of rigorous peer-reviewed research to argue their case through the years. However, in the last decade a small but energetic group of academics has started to publish regularly on the topic.

The latest salvo, published online in February and in the current edition of Injury Prevention, comes from Harvard University researcher Anne Lusk. Her study compares crash rates at six cycle tracks in Montreal to nearby streets that had no bicycle facilities, and bolsters the argument that cycle tracks are safer. Lusk found that relative risk of injury was 28 percent lower on cycle tracks compared to the on-street routes.

In addition, she found that about 2.5 times as many cyclists used the cycle tracks than the on-street routes. The finding agrees with the conclusions of a number of other recent studies that show protected bicycle lanes improve safety and help attract new riders.

While cycle tracks are common in European countries, they remain rare in America due to institutional inertia. That inertia was not countered effectively enough by a bicycling movement divided over anti-cycle track arguments made by vehicular cycling advocate John Forester, author of Effective Cycling, in the 1970s and 1980s.

As Jeff Mapes recounts in Pedaling Revolution, Forester helped codify and popularize the idea that cyclists fare best when they are treated as “drivers” of vehicles. He encouraged riders to take the full lane when needed, avoid riding on sidewalks, and move with the flow of traffic.

He also vigorously opposed bike infrastructure, fearing that bike lanes and cycle tracks would give authorities an excuse to ban recreational riders from the road. And he argued cycle tracks and other types of bike infrastructure were more dangerous than on-road riding.

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It looks like the Houston region still has a long way to go in balancing the needs of cyclists and pedestrians with those of drivers. The region’s Transportation Policy Council came down largely on the side of auto infrastructure Friday in deciding how to allocate tens of millions of dollars in federal funding. On the bright side, an all-out push from local cycling and pedestrian advocates successfully preserved a chunk of funding for biking and walking that had been under threat.

Houston planners justified their decision by saying more roads are needed and that pedestrian and cycling infrastructure benefits special interests. Photo: mrchriscornwell/Flickr

In a meeting packed with active transportation supporters, the TPC moved to dedicate 100 percent of its $80 million in federal discretionary funds to auto infrastructure over the next three years. Local advocates did keep the TPC from diverting an additional $12 million to roads that had already been dedicated to transit, walking, and biking.

“We did win something,” said Jay Crossley, of Houston Tomorrow, one of the groups that led the charge to secure increased funding for bike, pedestrian and transit projects. In addition to asking that the $12 million be preserved, they had also demanded that no more than 55 percent of the other $80 million be used for auto-oriented projects. Those funds come from two federal programs that often support non-automotive modes, including one dedicated to reducing congestion and air pollution.

“That’s $12.8 million that won’t be taken away from alternative modes, but we thought it could go farther,” said Crossley.

According to Crossley, 26 people spoke at the meeting in favor of increased bike and pedestrian funding. The four remaining speakers remarked on specific road projects, without entering the debate about how funding should be divided between different modes.

Ultimately, however, TPC members said expanding the region’s road network into sprawling and unincorporated areas was a bigger priority than “small-ticket things that are representative of individual communities’ values as opposed to regional values,” according to a report by The Houston Chronicle.

“We’re trying to provide the best mobility and alternative projects possible for the people of the entire region, not just some small part of this region,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.

The TPC’s decision bowed to powerful real estate and development interests, despite popular outcry, Crossley said.

“There is no public uproar saying we need more roads,” he said. “They did not listen to the people.”

Crossley said the local advocacy community will turn their energy to new objectives in the coming year. They will be organizing to support a statewide Complete Streets bill and also working to support safe passing bills large cities.

“This movement can do a lot and change things,” Crossley said. “We can put Houston on the path for reasonable transportation choices this year.”

The National Bike Summit begins tomorrow, bringing together an estimated 750 cycling advocates. They’ll hear from NYCDOT Chief Janette Sadik-Khan, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and they’ll descend on Congress in droves, plastic bike pins fastened to their lapels, to deliver a message about safe cycling access.

Don't look to AASHTO's manual for advice about bike boxes. The organization's guide, which often dictates whether projects get federal funding, does not incorporate the latest developments in cycling infrastructure. Photo: World Changing

We’ll be covering the Bike Summit like other Washington reporters cover the State of the Union. For people who care about sustainable transportation, this event is a high point of the year.

As bicycling infrastructure improves, advocates refine their demands. These days, the call is not just for bike lanes, but separated bike lanes. Bike Summit attendees are sure to be talking about it. Yesterday, Streetfilms released a new video about floating parking and separated cycletracks. And last month, Harvard’s School of Public Health released a study about the superior safety of separated bike tracks.

So why does the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials still advise against cycle tracks on safety grounds? AASHTO’s design manual is the “bible” used by traffic engineers and planners around the country, along with the FHWA’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and it can be hard for localities to get approval — or funding — for projects that deviate from the prescriptions laid out in these guides.

A group of urban transportation officials, called Cities for Cycling, has been working to update AASHTO’s Bikeway Design Standard Manual and the MUTCD for years to include better cycling infrastructure. Eric Gilliland, executive director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the sponsoring organization for Cities for Cycling, says the Harvard study confirms the benefits of separated bike lanes. “The trend, it seems, in bikeway planning is to provide more of a buffer between bicycle traffic and main street traffic, from a safety standpoint but also from an encouragement standpoint,” Gilliland said.

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Bet you weren’t expecting to hear any good news from the floor of the House today, were you? Turns out not everyone in Congress is as axe-happy as some high-profile Republicans. For example, Amtrak survived one attempt to cut all its funding and another to cut $447 million. (Amtrak funding does stand to lose $224 million in cuts already included in HR 1, the budget bill for the rest of FY2011.)

A bike/ped trail in Binghamton, NY funded by the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.

Over the weekend, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy sent out a pre-emptive action alert, afraid that any spending-cut frenzy would inevitably end up targeting the always vulnerable “transportation enhancements” program that funds bike/ped projects. RTC feared Safe Routes to School and other trail funding would lose out too.

“We knew there was going to be this open amendment process with hundreds of amendments flying around,” said RTC’s policy VP Kevin Mills. “And with some people critical of these core programs, we were on alert.”

You can take your hands off your eyes now – it’s not as bad as they feared.

No amendment directly targeted the transportation enhancements program. An amendment that would cut funding for the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund, which funds some trails, was defeated by a “nail-biting” 213-216 vote, with 32 Republicans voting against the cuts.

It’s not all good news, of course. The House has passed lots of Republican amendments to cut even deeper than the proposed bill allowed, while restricting Democratic amendments to restore funding by insisting that any funding added back in had to be taken out somewhere else.

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If you attended last week’s annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, you were one of 10,900 people presenting 2,200 papers and 2,500 slide presentations on everything from the conspicuity of pavement markings to complete streets for blind pedestrians.

Some of the bicycle research presented at TRB, like Jennifer Dill's work on route selection, could be of great use to advocates. Photo: L.E. Baskow / Pamplin Media Group

TRB changed in 1976 from a highway research board to a multimodal focus, and now “TRB can be just about anything to anyone depending on where you are in the industry,” attendee Erik Weber told Streetsblog. He works on mobility for seniors at the Federal Transit Administration. And there’s a TRB subcommittee that focuses on senior transportation issues. “Whether you’re an academic, or a professional, or a policymaker, there are sessions for any of that.”

For some policy types, though, the strict focus on research can be alienating. “It’s a research crowd, and they’re wary of people that want to talk policy,” says Andy Clarke, Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists. Still, he says, it’s encouraging to see how bicycle research has taken off. “When I first went to TRB in 1988, there were about seven people out of a crowd of 7,000 that were interested in bicycle issues. Now there are two pages of bike-specific sessions on the agenda.”

And some of the research coming out could result in better bicycling facilities.

Take, for example, Jennifer Dill’s research at Portland State on how cyclists choose routes. By monitoring a cyclist’s entire trip, Dill can tell what the shortest route would have been, and how much the cyclist was willing to go out of his way to ride on a bike boulevard or cycletrack or to avoid a steep hill. It helps engineers understand how strongly cyclists prefer to use bike facilities and where those facilities should go. Ralph Buehler’s work on the correlation between miles of bike facilities and higher mode share for bikes has a similar impact.

Still, as a research institution that keeps some distance from the world of transportation activism, TRB isn’t always focused on the research that would be the most useful to advocates.

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