Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Tomorrow is the last day of 2011, folks. I wish you a Happier New Year than this one was.

We’ve spent the last couple days looking back at some of the bests and worsts of 2011. A brief recap: The hit to transit budgets was the low point of the year, with the high point being the willingness of voters to tax themselves to restore some funding. Capitol Hill’s paralysis in the face of urgent infrastructure needs was a double-edged sword, given some of the really bad proposals out there. We booed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. James Inhofe, the lawmakers that killed President’s Obama’s high-speed rail plans, the city of Dallas, and the jury that convicted Raquel Nelson of “vehicular homicide” when she wasn’t even behind the wheel of a car. And we heaped praise on Minneapolis and Charleston for making good decisions to move their cities forward sustainably.

And before we sing Auld Lang Syne and ring in 2012, we’ve got just a little more kvetching and kvelling to do, starting with:

Most Annoying Distraction From the Real Transportation Funding Problem (and Solution): It’s no secret that the Highway Trust Fund is sputtering, and it’s taken $35 billion in general fund infusions just to keep it going this far. It’s a pretty basic equation: If you’re taking in less than you’re spending out, you’re going to come up short. So you can spend less or earn more. Most experts say it’s time to raise the federal gas tax.

But this year saw some other brilliant ideas emerge – like eliminating the federal gas tax altogether and leaving all transportation taxing and spending to the states. Which is a punt if I’ve ever seen one, ignoring the fiscal crises and anti-tax atmospheres most states face, not to mention the fact that slicing transportation funding up exclusively by state doesn’t make sense for building national networks.

And it takes a few days off my life every time I give column inches to the argument, which found great support among congestion enthusiasts this year, that transit shouldn’t be funded through the Highway Trust Fund, that the Fund was just fine before all these “hangers-on” started detracting from the “core programs” – I just can’t even go on.

But I think we can all agree that the Streetsie for the Most Frustrating and Illogical Proposal for Raising Infrastructure Funds goes to the scheme to eliminate biking and walking from federal funding programs. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) framed it as a safety issue – that it’s more important to fix crumbling and unsafe bridges than to build bike trails. He was ignoring the obvious fact that it would take his home state of Kentucky 66 years to repair the bridges currently listed as deficient if they used the tiny sliver of funding devoted to bike/ped projects.

The numbers don’t crunch any better for Oklahoma, yet that state’s Sen. Tom Coburn has the same idea. It’s too bad too. It’s a state with a serious infrastructure maintenance backlog and some desperately unsafe bridges. Oklahomans could benefit from some honest proposals to make their state safer, not this political quackery.

House Republican Blooper Reel: How could we wrap up 2011 without a final lap around some of the ways the House of Representatives made a mess of transportation authorization and appropriations? We started the year with some hope that all the parties were on board to pass a transportation bill in 2011, but instead we got:

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Call it the mystery of the missing transit. One of New York state’s biggest transit projects, in the works for nearly a decade, was canceled overnight and no one will explain why, or even claim responsibility for the decision.

Two weeks ago, each of the four alternatives for replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge, which spans the Hudson River north of New York City, connecting the suburban counties of Rockland and Westchester, included a new Metro-North commuter rail line and some form of bus rapid transit. The project called for widening the highway but also included a major expansion of transit in both counties. It was the product of nine years of study and a whopping 280 public meetings. The whole process was thoroughly documented, with information about each alternative — along with hundreds of pages generated by the environmental review process and public commentary — easily found on the state’s Tappan Zee Bridge website.

On October 11, the Federal Highway Administration and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office announced that the bridge project had been selected for expedited federal review. The project they promised to speed up, however, was vastly different from the one vetted over the course of nearly a decade. The new plan for the bridge promised to add space for car traffic but left the transit component to be completed at an unspecified future date. Transit advocates are skeptical that the commuter rail and BRT lines will ever see the light of day.

At the same time that transit was removed from the plan, the state expunged from the public record all information about the nine-year public process and the four design alternatives that included rail and bus lines. The Tappan Zee website no longer displays the documents it did two weeks ago, as blogger Cap’n Transit first noted. The endorsement of transit, the extensive environmental analysis, the history of public input — all of it gone, replaced by three short documents chronicling the brief history of the transit-free project.

So much for transparency. Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said she couldn’t recall a single example of this kind of wholesale document scrubbing.

In addition to hiding the history of the Tappan Zee project, the state and federal agencies in charge won’t disclose how they reached the decision to build the bridge without transit.

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We reported yesterday that the Obama administration had selected 14 infrastructure projects, including five transportation projects, to put on the fast track for construction. We mentioned that there were early warnings from transit advocates that at least one of these projects might not go exactly as planned. Noah Kazis at Streetsblog NYC looked deeper into those concerns. This is an updated version of his original report.

For nine years, the state of New York has been studying how to replace the aging Tappan Zee Bridge. The bridge, which is more than 50 years old, requires ever more expensive repairs to stay structurally sound and was never intended to carry the volume of traffic that pours over it every day. Since 2002, an extensive public process has led to the development of four alternative plans for the Tappan Zee and the I-287 corridor. Each of them would rebuild the bridge, widen the roadway and include both a new Metro-North commuter rail line and bus rapid transit service across the bridge.

Even after the extensive public process and environmental review, however, those transit components could end up on the scrap heap. The Obama administration selected the Tappan Zee replacement yesterday as one of 14 major infrastructure projects for federal fast-tracking. But as a condition for selecting the Tappan Zee for “streamlining,” the federal Department of Transportation told New York officials to postpone the transit components, according to the New York Times. Instead, New York State DOT will be tasked with building a wider, eight-lane bridge (an increase from seven lanes) “to which mass transit could be added in the future.” The decision from U.S. DOT followed personal lobbying from Governor Andrew, who urged Obama’s chief of staff, William Daley, to select the Tappan Zee project.

Postponing the construction of the transit components means that New Yorkers could be left with a major highway expansion that skirts the entire public review process. This would run against the four alternatives that have already been vetted, and it threatens an indefinite delay for any dedicated transitway on the Tappan Zee.

“If transit isn’t added now, we worry it never will be,” said Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Including transit on the bridge ran into some local political resistance this summer. This July, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino called for the removal of transit from the plans for the bridge in order to lower costs and speed up construction. As the Tri-State Transportation Campaign reported at the time, the bridge and highway components of the project are projected to cost $8.3 billion. Building the bridge with rail would add $6.7 billion, while the bus system would cost around $1 billion. Astorino’s office told Streetsblog that they hadn’t heard that the transit component had been postponed and that it was too early for any design to have been selected.

Transportation and environmental advocates called for President Obama and Governor Andrew Cuomo to commit to building transit at the same time as the highway is rebuilt, even if only the bus service is installed to start.

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Last month Streetsblog asked whether President Obama would select transportation projects that reduce congestion, improve air quality, and create jobs when he picked several infrastructure investments, among those recommended by agency officials, to fast-track. The selection of these projects, intended to help spur short-term job creation, could avoid the mistakes of the 2009 stimulus program, which funneled billions to “shovel-ready” projects that will also promote sprawl. Leading up to the announcement, the president’s rhetoric seemed to indicate that the administration would opt for road maintenance and transit projects rather than newer, wider highways.

Today the administration announced its list of 14 projects, and at first glance, it seems like most of the transportation-related projects take transit, bicycling, and walking into consideration. Some of them will induce sprawl nonetheless, because they expand traffic capacity.

These projects won’t get more federal funds, but they will get federal help in expediting the process. The president promised that this fast-tracking won’t shortchange environmental reviews. The projects were highlighted by officials in several agencies and final selection was done by the White House.

Here’s the list of surface transportation-related projects, most of them recommended by the Department of Transportation:

Tappan Zee Bridge, New York: The bridge is rated structurally deficient as well as functionally obsolete, meaning that in addition to carrying more traffic than it was designed for, the structure is unsafe to carry vehicles. Constant repairs have made the bridge into a money pit, and a significant overhaul could produce long-term savings on maintenance. Notably, this project is not close to “shovel-ready” status, so its selection seems to indicate that the administration had long-term goals in mind, in addition to short-term job creation. There are plans to include a Bus Rapid Transit lane and a commuter rail line on the bridge, as well, but some advocates worry that all that widening could happen without the transit components coming through in the end.

Crenshaw/LAX, California: LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has become a champion for federal loan programs because of his zeal to expand transit in his city. The Crenshaw/LAX project is a cornerstone of his efforts and will provide a critical transit connection to the airport. The city has done a good job attracting federal interest and assistance, and the FTA is already helping them shorten the approval time for the project.

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President Obama chose the home turf of two of his principal political opponents to highlight the need for more infrastructure investment in the U.S. Standing beneath the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Cincinnati (the home city of House Speaker John Boehner) with Kentucky (the home state of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell), Obama made his demand of Congress: “Rebuild this bridge!”

The president was making a push for his $447 billion jobs bill, which could create an estimated 1.9 million jobs.

The Brent Spence Bridge is considered “functionally obsolete.” “It’s safe to drive on, but it was not designed to accommodate today’s traffic, which can stretch for a mile,” Obama said.

Many transportation reformers would rather see transportation agencies attend to “structurally deficient” infrastructure — which is not safe to drive on, despite the fact that thousands of people do it every day — instead of widening safe, existing roads. This particular bridge project, which local smart growth advocates have been warning about for years, would add more lanes and induce sprawl.

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(Marybeth Miceli is the President of Miceli Infrastructure Consulting, LLC.  She is a bridge testing and assessment specialist and materials scientist with a background in Nondestructive Testing/Evaluation.   She has just completed a 3-year term on the Board of Directors for the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT), who named her “Young NDT Professional of the Year” in 2003. She is also married to L.A. Streetsblog editor Damien Newton.)

We can thank President Obama for calling attention once again to the tragic bridge collapse of the I-35 W Bridge outside Minneapolis in 2007.  In a recent speech regarding the Republican spending bill, he criticizes the GOP’s infrastructure spending cuts, tying together the collapse with aging infrastructure and our lack of spending in the transportation arena.  The critics in the media have decided to jump on this, waving the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report saying the 2007 collapse of the I-35 highway bridge just outside of Minneapolis was caused by a design flaw.

Unsurprisingly, some in the media continues to not do their homework, particularly when it comes to transportation infrastructure.  Fox & Friends reported that Obama, in his speech, was blaming the bridge collapse on “budget holdouts.” How many of those reporting on this story (or even those who reported on the original collapse) actually read the report?

The President is 100 percent correct to draw this association between lack of funding and the collapse.  Though the “root cause” of the collapse was the gusset plate design flaw, there were many contributing factors to the collapse such as the construction equipment and materials being placed on the exact weak joint.  But there is so much more to the “perfect storm” that caused the collapse.  If any one of the factors had been avoided, the tragic collapse that took the lives of 13 would likely have been averted.

Cutting funding for transportation infrastructure, inspection, and repair only make it more likely that the conditions that caused this “storm” could happen again.

Two of the main contributing factors were: Read more…

Few people think that this could happen to their local bridge or highway overpass, but a snowballing epidemic of deferred maintenance could mean more and more bridge closings across the country. How we got here is the subject of Transportation for America’s new “Fix It“ campaign, which was launched yesterday with the release of a special report on the country’s aging bridges. “The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges” [PDF] aims to motivate Congress to significantly increase “common sense” funding for the repair, reconstruction and upgrading of existing bridges and overpasses. It addresses the political and fiscal challenges that transportation officials face in maintaining the infrastructure we already have. The report marks a significant contribution of data to the national transportation debate and presents an interactive online map that people can use to check the safety of the bridges in their area, offering a new level of transparency on the status of our bridges.

If you left your grandma’s old wicker chair out on the porch all winter – and the next, and the next, and the next for 20 years – would you still trust that chair to hold you if you sat down?

According to Barry LePatner, author of the new book Too Big to Fall: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward, you shouldn’t trust our country’s bridges much more than you trust that chair. He calls them “ticking time bombs” and “tragedies waiting to happen.”

But, he says, there’s good news. You’ve heard the estimates that a quarter of the nation’s bridges are either “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete.” That’s more than 160,000 bridges to repair or replace. But rather than throw up our hands and say the problem is too big, LePatner urges us to take a look at a much more significant – and manageable – number: 7,980.

“Forget ‘structurally deficient.’ Forget ‘functionally obsolete,’” LePatner told a group of experts in Washington, DC last week. He urges a new focus on bridges he calls “fracture-critical.”

“A ‘fracture-critical’ bridge is a bridge designed where if one critical member of the bridge fails – one piece –the entire bridge goes down like a house of cards,” he said, “It has no redundancy.”

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The country’s crisis of crumbling infrastructure could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand bicycle access.

With one out of every four U.S. bridges deemed deficient, obsolete, or inadequate, a spate of bridge reconstruction is already overdue. And as planners start engineering the improvements, pedestrians and cyclists have to make sure they’re part of the process. Advocates should remember that the USDOT requires bike accommodations on bridges built with federal funds.

That’s the call from the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking and Walking. The two groups released a report this week called Bridging the Gaps in Bicycling Networks: An advocate’s guide to getting bikes on bridges [PDF].

The Bike League and the Alliance walk advocates through the most common obstacles to gaining bike-ped access on bridges and shows how other groups have been successful. For example, “Advocates in the San Francisco Bay Area got a bike path included on the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge by using bike counts on the Golden Gate Bridge: 220-250 bikes per hour.”

South Carolina cyclists famously won a bridge-access campaign for the Ravenel Bridge over the Cooper River in Charleston. State officials came at them with every excuse in the book from cost to low usage estimates to suicide risk from jumping. Officials scoffed at the idea, asking “Why not allow horse-drawn carriages on the bridge?”
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When Minneapolis' I-35 bridge collapsed in 2007, lawmakers from both parties vowed to focus on shoring up the nation's aging infrastructure. But when the public spotlight faded from the issue of infrastructure repair, Congress showed little appetite for setting aside maintenance aid that did not hold the promise of ribbon-cutting ceremonies or campaign donations.

Meanwhile, existing federal transportation formulas dole out bridge repair money based on the size of each state's maintenance backlog. But up to half of that repair funding can be redirected to other purposes, such as building new roads, with the assurance of continued largess -- as long as local bridges remain unfixed.

That little-known provision is one of many "perverse incentives" highlighted in a report on road and bridge maintenance released today by the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups' (PIRG) education fund.

The rules governing federal aid for interstate maintenance, according to the U.S. PIRG, are equally skewed to ensure older roads keep crumbling. Take the cases of New York, where 567 miles of road were rated in less than "good" condition by the U.S. DOT (see categories in the above pie chart), and Florida, where 13 miles were in the same aging state.

One might think that New York would receive more maintenance money from Washington. But as today's report points out:

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