Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Should private transit companies enjoy the same federal gas tax exemption that many public operators receive? How does the existence of private inter-city bus service affect the government's development of new high-speed rail lines? And does it matter that private transit firms are eligible for public subsidies, even if at a much smaller rate than public rail and bus agencies?

Few definitive answers to those questions were on offer today at a transit panel sponsored by the Mobility Choice coalition, which allies members of conservative-leaning think tanks with a handful of environmental advocates and urbanists -- but the discussion yielded some provocative evidence of the fault lines between public and private operators.

Principally sponsored by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), the group describes itself as adopting "a fiscally responsible, free market oriented approach to expanding competition among transportation modes for the purpose of reducing oil's strategic value."

American Bus Association (ABA) Chairman James Jalbert, whose group represents private bus and motorcoach companies, lamented that the U.S. DOT's implementation of its $10.5 billion high-speed rail program -- which is expected to receive billions more in federal funding in the coming years -- did not envision a role for private-sector firms that already provide inter-city service.

"A good-quality system that could be included in a rail project is now going to be run over by that rail project," said Jalbert, also the president New Hampshire-based bus company C&J. "We want to be part of the solution, but we need to be invited to the party."

Integrating private bus operators into proposed passenger rail projects has to start at the state level, where officials make the call on whether and how to pursue federal bullet-train money, Jalbert added. He described a potentially successful partnership between public inter-city rail and private bus companies as a shared scheduling system, where passengers could purchase tickets for rail during peak hours but an equivalent bus journey during off-peak times, when operating a motorcoach could be more efficient.

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The Obama administration plans to award $775 million in bus transit grants this summer, Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff announced yesterday during a transit industry conference in Ohio.

The bus grants are aimed at shoring up aging equipment and helping cash-strapped localities modernize their systems. Instructions for application will be released tomorrow in the Federal Register, with bids due by next month.

"The Obama administration is making these funds available to ensure that financially strapped transit providers can keep buses rolling and serving the public during these difficult economic times,” Rogoff said in a statement released by the FTA today.

The $775 million comes from already-appropriated but unallocated federal bus funding, meaning that no new act of Congress will be required to release the money.

Transit networks around the world beefed up security measures in the wake of last month's fatal bombing of a Moscow subway car, but the relevance of circumstances and tactics used in overseas terrorist attacks to U.S. rail and bus security remains unclear, according to a new report partly funded by the U.S. DOT.

The report was released in March by the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) at San Jose State University, which gets funding from the U.S. DOT and the California state legislature. The MTI, named for the Bush-era Transportation Secretary, is in the process of assembling the first database of terrorist attacks specific to U.S. surface transport modes, supplementing existing government statistics with its own research.

The MTI's latest report on its database analyzed more than 1,600 terrorist attacks on or threats to surface transportation -- only 15 of which occurred in North America. Of those, four were directed at public buses, three at bridges, and eight at trains.

Transit's lack of prevalence as a terrorist target in the United States, according to the MTI, is due in part to the more widespread public use of rail and buses in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. From the report:

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As the federal government moves forward on a mandate to set stronger fuel-efficiency rules for trucks and buses, a new report from an independent scientific body is urging lawmakers to take another approach: raise fuel taxes.

The National Research Council (NRC), which often advises Congress and the executive branch on environmental and transportation issues, yesterday reported on several strategies to decrease emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.

Several technological improvements scored high on the NRC's fuel-savings scale. Adding hybrid powertrains to big rigs, for example, could cut fuel use by up to 50 percent over five years, and phasing out gas engines in favor of diesel-powered ones could achieve up to 24 percent in fuel savings.

But the NRC's most surprising advice came on the topic of higher fuel taxes, which the report described as an efficient way to correct the "social inefficiency" that results when private businesses decline to cut emissions "since the private return is too low." The report also projected that higher fuel taxes would encourage freight-carrying firms to make wider use of other gas-saving tactics.

"Although the committee recognizes the political difficulty with increasing fuel taxes, it strongly recommends that Congress consider fuel taxes as an alternative to mandating fuel efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks," the NRC authors wrote.

Another benefit of raising fuel taxes to spur emissions cuts, according to the report, is the prospect of more immediate economic and environmental benefits.

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A $189 million budget shortfall for next year is forcing some tough choices on Washington D.C.'s local transit authority, which is poised to approve a package of fare increases and service cuts that includes a 35-cent hike for bus trips.

As riders brace for the lean times ahead, a front-page story in today's Washington Post asked whether that 20-percent jump for bus riders -- compared with a proposed 15-percent fare hike for rail -- disproportionately hits the city's lowest-income residents.

Transit planners and pundits alike have long debated the relative merits of bus versus rail, with some vocal supporters of the latter mode depicting the former as an inferior option that alienates middle-class travelers who might otherwise eschew a car.

But tucked in the middle of the Post's piece is a sign that buses could be making a comeback as more local riders' groups pursue activism and organizing:

For the first time, Metro is using Census Bureau and other data to identify the impact of fare and service changes on minorities and households without automobiles, under a mandate from the Federal Transit Administration [FTA], said Jim Hamre, Metro's acting director of bus planning. That evaluation is not completed, he said.

Why is that FTA-mandated analysis so crucial? It was first sought in 2007, when the agency formally advised recipients of federal grants on how to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Local transit authorities were told to survey minority and lower-income riders on the effects of fare and service policies, to ensure a minimum level of public outreach to all communities, and to craft concrete plans for giving equal access to riders with limited English ability.

That guidance might have fizzled in practice, but the FTA put teeth in its civil-rights enforcement, recently revoking $70 million in federal stimulus money from the Bay Area's Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) rail line after critics charged that the project would negatively impact minority communities. One advocacy group involved in the OAC complaint noted that the city's metro planning agency has set aside 94 percent of its transit expansion funding for rail, leaving 4 percent for buses.

Could local riders file a civil-rights complaint against a proportionally higher increase in D.C. bus fares, should it become official? Read more...

The beleaguered Las Vegas monorail, which filed for bankruptcy in January after repeatedly failing to meet ridership targets, lost a possible lifeline yesterday when the local metropolitan planning organization, known as RTC, said it would not aid the monorail for fear of diverting resources from its own bus expansion.

From the Las Vegas Sun's report:

Since the monorail is a private company, it would need support from the commission to get federal transit funds, RTC General Manager Jacob Snow told the commission’s board at its monthly meeting Thursday.

But supporting the monorail could create competition for funds the RTC uses for its own transit system, Snow said.

The board didn’t take any formal action, but Snow said the RTC staff recommends the two organizations stay separate. Board members said they agreed and would look into taking formal action if necessary.

The monorail project initially enjoyed support from both sides of the aisle in Nevada's congressional delegation, including now-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Its real death knell, however, may have come not in bankruptcy court but in the fine print of a December deal struck by lawmakers to apportion federal transport funds for 2010.

That bill included language asking the U.S. DOT to redirect unspent earmark money for the monorail, as well as for Las Vegas' proposed CATrail transit line and a potential transit hub in North Las Vegas, to the RTC's bus projects. In total, $10.3 million in unused earmarks were in line to shift to Las Vegas buses, according to a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) estimate compiled last fall.

That amount of freed-up funding for buses is nothing to sniff at -- but how big was the original monorail earmark? It's tough to say. The December bill that reprogrammed Las Vegas earmarks referred to "funds made available" for the monorail under one section of a large 2002 spending bill that added an extra $144 million in federal transportation grants, with no specific apportionment included.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon is on her way out of office, thanks to a deal with prosecutors pursuing a corruption case against her, but she's leaving something positive in place for local transit riders.

The city's new free bus line, dubbed the Charm City Circulator, started rolling through downtown yesterday after some delays, with plans to add two new lines as soon as this spring.

Baltimore, often viewed as the front lines in U.S. cities' battle with blight, chose to fund its bus with a move that would raise hackles in some of its Eastern seaboard neighbors: an increase in the parking tax.

Could Baltimore's bus rollout, coupled with the change of administration, boost the city's chances of winning federal aid for its proposed Red Line light rail project? Time will tell.

The question of running buses or building rail has preoccupied transit planners in many an American town, with Maryland's Montgomery County being the latest locality to choose between trains and bus rapid transit (BRT), which tends to be the less expensive option.

But another, far thornier aspect of the bus versus rail debate has made its way into the public dialogue, giving fodder to transit-minded bloggers from Matt Yglesias to Atrios: Is there a cultural bias against buses? The issue, fraught with social equity implications, made its way into a debate on conservatives and transit held today by Transportation for America.

The debate focused largely on the themes of the book Moving Minds, in which co-authors Bill Lind and the late Paul Weyrich aim to convert their fellow conservatives into transit advocates. But Lind is also an unabashed critic of buses, which he believes are unappealing to average American travelers and impede the prospects for transit expansion.

"Most Americans like transit but don't like riding buses," Lind said today, adding that "if you give them a bus, they drive," but rail would be a more preferable mode than the auto.

Sam Staley, the Reason Foundation director enlisted as the conservative transit skeptic for the debate, was put in the unlikely position of defending well-designed BRT's ability to serve communities.

Depicting buses as second fiddles to rail is "underestimating the importance of the quality of service provided," Staley said. Where rail is treated as superior, he added, often it is "doing a better job of getting point to point, and doing it faster, than a bus," but well-funded bus systems "are doing a good job at competing."

For a more in-depth look at the bus-rail dichotomy, check out the Transportation Research Board's recent paper on how the choice affects local transit goals.

Tucked into the transportation spending bill that Congress approved over the weekend are two wins for Washington state's senior senator, Patty Murray (D), who chairs the upper chamber's transport budget-writing panel.

Murray's first victory deals with Bush-era rules for charter buses that barred local transit agencies from providing cheaper service to special events, such as sports games or local concerts.

The charter bus rules, written to help give private companies a leg up over publicly funded transit, have adversely affected Minnesotans and D.C. residents, among others. But next year's transportation spending bill gives a particular pass to the transit agency in King County, WA, allowing the company to continue its bus service to Seattle Mariners games.

Murray's Senate version of the spending bill ended the charter bus rule "in the state of Washington," but the final version of the legislation used less specific language: An exemption was given to "any transit agency who during fiscal year 2008 was both initially granted a 60-day period to come into compliance with [the rules], and then was subsequently granted an extension."

In a statement to the Post-Intelligencer newspaper, Murray cheered the local rollback of the bus transit rule:

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During a visit to New Orleans, where city planners are seeking nearly $100 million in federal stimulus money for three new streetcar lines, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced plans to award $280 million in grants for streetcar and bus networks.

The grants, set to be awarded this spring, do not require new spending -- the money will come from unallocated funding lawmakers have already approved for transit New Starts and buses, according to a statement released by the U.S. DOT.

The streetcar and bus investments are being depicted as the first phase in the Obama administration's inter-agency sustainable communities partnership, headed by longtime transit advocate Shelley Poticha. The legislation officially starting that push, which would also authorize $4 billion for transit-oriented development projects, has yet to see action in Congress.

“Fostering the concept of livability in transportation projects will stimulate America’s neighborhoods to become safer, healthier and more vibrant," LaHood said in a statement on the grants.

The money is set to be divided into two parts. The first would award $130 million to streetcars and "urban circulators," with a focus on proposals that promote mixed-use development in local neighborhoods. No project can win more than $25 million from that pot, however, which would provide about 12 percent of the funding New Orleans needs for its ambitious streetcar expansion plan.

The second $150 million group of bus grants would go to proposals that "provide access to jobs, healthcare, and education, and/or contribute to the redevelopment of neighborhoods into pedestrian-friendly vibrant environments," the U.S. DOT said in its announcement.

As part of his trip to New Orleans, the first leg of a nationwide transportation tour, LaHood toured local transit stations that were hit by Hurricane Katrina. He stopped by the Union Passenger Terminal (home of the Amtrak Crescent line) and the Willow Street barn, where the city's famous cherry-red streetcars were repaired following hurricane-related flooding.