Streetsblog Capitol Hill

In H.R.7 – the transpo bill so backwards even the House couldn’t pass it — the roads-only crowd threw transit riders under the bus, as it were, eliminating dedicated funding for transit, which was left to fend for itself off scraps from the general fund.

The transpo bill offers no assistance to transit agencies struggling not to cut service or raise fares. Photo: Gothamist

The best thing one can say about the bill issued by the conference committee last night is that it doesn’t include that draconian measure. But it sure doesn’t do anything to move transit forward in this country.

The bill maintains current funding levels at a time when more Americans are turning to transit but cities can barely maintain their existing services. Ridership has been growing steadily for countless economic and social reasons. But transit agency budgets haven’t grown with it, and Congress, with this bill, is surrendering its chance to help struggling cities and move toward a future where Americans have more transportation options.

The New Starts grant program for transit agencies is maintained, but suffered nearly a $50 million cut in funding. New Starts funding helps build new rail lines and busways. This is where the money to expand transit systems comes from, and it stays flat in this bill. A new subcategory of New Starts will help agencies maintain their existing stock of buses, trains, track, and other capital assets, as long as a 10 percent capacity increase will result from the investment, so there will be some added flexibility in the new bill. But that’s hardly what you’d call progress in an era of rising gas prices and intensifying demand for walkable, transit-oriented places.

The Senate bill had also thrown a life-preserver to struggling transit systems by allowing them to use federal grants to maintain service during periods of high unemployment — when agency budgets typically take a beating. In a previous incarnation, the operations flexibility was unconditional, but by the time the Senate had its way with it, the flexibility was only available when the community’s unemployment rate rose above seven percent. But by the time the conference committee had its way with it, the bill had shed even this modest protection for struggling transit systems.

Another major disappointment is the elimination of parity between the tax benefits commuters can get for parking and the benefits available for taking transit. Under the 2009 stimulus bill, the two were temporarily equalized, with $240 in commuting costs being tax deductible per month, but the transit benefit then reverted to its former level of $125 a month. The Senate sought to codify equality between the parking benefit and transit benefit but that, too, was stripped out of the conference bill.

For these reasons and many more, the 500 organizations in the Transportation for America coalition had this to say:

We are encouraged that Congress will avoid a shutdown of the program. Unfortunately, this last-minute, closed-door deal does little more than that. The bill ultimately looks and feels like what it is: A stopgap that is the last gasp of a spent 20th century program. It doesn’t begin to address the needs of a changing America in the 21st century.

Read more…

NOTE: The facts are even worse than they seemed when I wrote this article. States can flex TA money, not just to CMAQ, but to anything they want. See “The Awful Truth About the Transpo Bill’s Bike/Ped Loophole,” for more.

In the transportation bill agreed to yesterday by Barbara Boxer, John Mica, and other Congressional leaders, the program that allocates federal transportation dollars to local street safety projects like bike lanes, sidewalks and crosswalks has morphed into a much more general fund for anything that can be considered an air quality improvement strategy at all. States have great leeway to shift funds around, and bike/ped projects will have to compete with road projects and much more.

Who needs sidewalks and bike lanes when you have these? Photo: By Chance Lansdale

The “Transportation Alternatives” section of the bill says it reduces total funding to 2009 levels for the Transportation Enhancements program for each state. But Caron Whitaker at America Bikes tells Streetsblog that’s actually an error in the bill. In reality, she said in an email, “The funding goes from 1.2 billion [total for Enhancements, Recreational Trails and Safe Routes to School] in FY 2011 to 700 – 750 million under TA.” That’s a drop of up to 42 percent. [UPDATE: The final number is $808 million for 2013 and $820 million -- a 33 percent cut.]

“Transportation Alternatives” has also absorbed the Safe Routes to School and Recreational Trails programs, which used to have their own dedicated funding. And, inexplicably, it can be used to fund “planning, designing, or constructing boulevards and other roadways largely in the right-of-way of former Interstate System routes or other divided highways.”

The bill sets the total funding for the Transportation Alternatives program at two percent of total highway funding out of the Highway Trust Fund (not including the Mass Transit account). Then it splits that amount in half, with one part going to local agencies (which are likely to put it to good use) and the other part going to states for them to allocate through a competitive process.

Unless the state doesn’t feel like it.

This opt-out provision is especially damaging to street safety in states where the DOT doesn’t prioritize walking and biking. Starting in the next fiscal year, states that haven’t spent their “Transportation Alternatives” dollars on TA projects can use them for anything else that can be interpreted as improving air quality.

That’s right: The “opt-out” provision for states isn’t use-it-or-lose-it. States that sit on their TA money long enough can use it for things like truck stop electrification systems, HOV lanes, turning lanes, and diesel retrofits [or anything else they like].

Yes, the tiny sliver of federal transportation funding reserved for healthy and environmentally sound transportation choices can be squandered on left turn lanes.

Transportation for America, the big-tent coalition for transportation reform, tends to be careful about the statements it puts out. Its folks are diplomatic, since they work with both sides on the Hill and a wide variety of coalition members. Yesterday, as details of the conference report were leaking out, they wanted to read the whole bill before weighing in publicly. Now that they’ve absorbed it all, they’ve come out swinging.

Language requiring accommodation to nonmotorized users was struck from the final bill. Photo: Charlotte DOT via National Complete Streets Coalition

“Senate Capitulates to House Demands,” today’s statement reads, “Eliminates Critical Provisions in Transportation Bill.”

T4A goes on:

Despite initial rumors that negotiations would lead to some real progress on essential transportation needs, the ‘compromise’ undoes progress from previous bills and provides little vision for the future.

We’ll have details throughout the day on the significant provisions in the bill and how they differ from current policy.

Yesterday we mentioned the watered-down funding provisions for street safety projects compared to the Senate bill. Turns out that isn’t the only way that the final bill weakens biking and walking.

Indeed, the complete streets provision that passed with bi-partisan support in the Senate was eliminated from the final bill. “It was included in the Commerce committee’s freight title, which had come under fire from House Republicans for unrelated reasons,” said Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition in a statement this morning.

The street safety (or “complete streets”) amendment [PDF] introduced by Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) ordered the Secretary of Transportation to “establish standards to ensure that the design of Federal surface transportation projects provides for the safe and adequate accommodation, in all phases of project planning, development, and operation, of all users of the transportation network, including motorized and non-motorized users.”

McCann did note a silver lining: the Highway Safety Improvement Program language in the report includes a new, more comprehensive definition of street users that is based on Complete Streets language.

Meanwhile, the Chair of the Banking Committee, which wrote and negotiated the transit title of the bill, just released a statement that barely mentions transit. Jobs, safer highways, student loans, flood insurance: check. Transit: not so much. More to come.

I was not expecting this: Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) just released a statement saying “the tentative agreement establishes federal highway, transit and highway safety policy and keeps programs at current funding levels through the end of fiscal year 2014.” That’s a full year longer than the Senate bill allowed for.

A loose interpretation of the "three day" rule will set the clock ticking before midnight tonight, and the House will vote Friday morning. Photo: NYSUT

This will no doubt please states, local governments, and the construction industry, which have long complained that a short bill wouldn’t do enough to give them the certainty they need to move big projects.

Still, given the contortions the Senate Finance Committee had to perform just to get the bill funded through September 2013 — the expiration date of the Senate bill — it’ll be very interesting to see what had to happen to finance this thing for a whole extra year without the Highway Trust Fund going bust.

It’s not just that the clock is starting so much later than the Senate bill (an outline of which was drafted nearly a year ago). Money from the bill will be used retroactively to pay for the amount the country has been overspending the HTF as it continually extended the current transportation program without paying for it, according to a Capitol Hill aide.

An aide to the committee told Streetsblog he expects the full text of the conference report to be available sometime tonight. We’ll bring you more details as we have them.

Mica says he plans to have everything wrapped up by 9:00 tonight so that conferees can vote on the final report sometime between 9:00 and 11:00. Due to an extremely creative interpretation of the three-day rule, a vote tonight allows the full House to vote on the report early Friday morning. (The three-day rule derives from Republican indignance at being asked to vote on the health care bill without enough time to read it. At the time, three days meant 72 hours.

UPDATED 4:45 PM

Sen. Barbara Boxer just issued the following statement. It confirms that “half of the funds for bike paths and pedestrian walkways [will be allocated] directly to local entities,” as spelled out in the Cardin-Cochran amendment. It appears that the “opt-out” provision for states only applies to the half that they control, after local governments have their say. That’s still a blow to the Cardin-Cochran amendment, however, which required states to hold a competitive grant process to distribute their half of the funds.

Photo: Bike Portland

As it is, the amount included for bike/ped in “Additional Activities” under the Senate bill was less than has been allotted to Transportation Enhancements, and included eligibility for many more programs, including some road projects.

Without further ado, here’s Boxer’s statement:

I am so glad that House Republicans met Democrats half way, as Senate Republicans did months ago.

The bill is funded at current levels, and it will protect and create three million jobs. This job creation is the critical focus of Democrats, because we know that the unemployment rate in construction is at an unacceptable level.

We speed up project delivery, cut red tape, and do it without jeopardizing environmental laws. For the first time, we send half of the funds for bike paths and pedestrian walkways directly to local entities, and we protect those funds while giving states more flexibility on their share.

Our country needs the kind of economic boost that this bill offers, and I am looking forward to getting it to the President’s desk.

It is ironic that in June 1956 the Senate passed its first highway bill, and thanks to the work of many committees and all parties, we will not allow that great history of our interstate transportation system to disappear.

Updated 4:15 p.m.:

Barbara Boxer has issued a statement showing the early rumors were off-target — some form of the Cardin-Cochran amendment preserving local government access to a portion of bike/ped funding is in the final bill. While this is something of a relief for everyone working to make their local streets safer for walking and biking, the conference committee has weakened the original Cardin-Cochran provision passed by the Senate. In the final deal, local governments will get half the bike/ped funding set aside in the bill, while state DOTs can either spend the rest or opt out of it. In the Senate version, states would have distributed the other 50 percent of funding through a competitive bidding process.

Updated 3:30 p.m.:

We’re hearing that the Cardin-Cochran amendment has, indeed, been gutted and that states will be able to “opt out” of spending on bicycle and pedestrian safety projects. This has been a Republican objective for a long time, and it looks like they’ve triumphed over the thousands of people who demanded that Congress let local governments preserve access to the tiny sliver of funding set aside for active transportation. Without the Cardin-Cochran provision, highway-focused state DOTs can effectively bloc cities and towns from investing in safer streets for biking and walking.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have succeeded in getting ideological GOP provisions on the Keystone XL pipeline and coal ash deregulation axed from the bill. The bill expires in September 2013, despite some calls for a longer-term bill, and we’re expecting the funding levels to be what the Senate has always offered ($109 billion). We’re waiting for the news on environmental protections, transit operations, and everything else they’ve been fighting over, as well as the final details of the bike/ped deal. When these details come to light, it will be more clear whether, in the end, this bill will be better than no bill at all.

The House has three days to read the bill before the vote, which at this point would have to be Saturday. We hear the Senate will be staying in session also, to vote on the conference report after the House does. The president technically has until Monday morning to sign it before the transportation program lapses.

Meanwhile, somewhat bizarrely, the House is set to vote in the next hour on FY2013 transportation appropriations, a bill that could be quickly rendered moot by this reauthorization bill. After that vote, they’re going to the White House picnic. That should be a good time.

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:
Read more…

Conference negotiations are continuing, Congressional staffers are getting no sleep, legislators could even lose their weekend if they don’t get this transportation bill done. Politico noted this morning a key fact that seems to be flying under the radar: the deadline isn’t really Saturday. It’s actually today, if House members are to have the requisite three days to read the bill. (The GOP made a big deal over not having enough time to read long and complicated bills while the Dems were in charge.)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says they'll probably get a bill done -- but if they don't, it's weekend work time. Photo: Office of Harry Reid

Meanwhile, Transportation for America has alerted the Twitterverse that today marks 1,000 days since the last transportation bill expired. The Blue Green Alliance’s #stillwaiting Twitter campaign of earlier this month is only becoming more relevant: “When Congress last passed a long-term transportation bill we couldn’t tweet this tweet to say we’re #stillwaiting,” they tweeted. “Nic Cage has acted in 19 movies since 2005 but we’re #stillwaiting 4 a long-term transportation bill from #Congress.” Alliance staff members got in on the action: “When the US last had a long term #transportation GaGa was just an emotion. Hey Congress we’re #StillWaiting,” tweeted one.

After a long and angst-ridden roller coaster, lawmakers are increasingly upbeat about the chances of passing a bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the odds are better than 50-50. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) says, “We’re in very good shape.” Minority Whip Steny Hoyer expressed a little more pessimism, or at least, befuddlement: “I don’t know what to expect,” he said. That’s par for the course in a negotiation process that’s kept House Democrats in the dark throughout.

Even if they’re this close, this week might not be the end of it. They might need an extension of week or two just to get over the reading-period hurdle, get it through both houses, and get the city’s fastest bike courier to weave through DC traffic to bring it to the White House.

Active transportation advocates are still sounding the alarm over the possibility that Senate Democrats are trading away local control for bike/ped funds. And just about everyone is hammering Congress to just get this done already. The Washington Post affirmed in a Sunday editorial that a) the transportation bill is more important than another debate stealing the limelight this week over student loan rates, b) transportation is a federal responsibility, and c) this bill would be a lot better if it would just raise the gas tax already.

Some Politico reporters are saying that the student loan issue might be rolled into the transportation legislation – as if combining unrelated items makes for easier-to-pass bills. Meanwhile, other Politico reporters are saying that rather than fold in new bills, the transportation bill itself might be split in two: transportation provisions and unrelated issues, like the Keystone XL pipeline and coal ash, which have threatened to derail a compromise.

All we can say for sure is that this is going to be an interesting week.

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.

Read more…

With conference negotiations occurring in a black box, transportation advocates on all sides are anxiously awaiting word of the final deal. Rumors abound that Democrats have been willing to negotiate away local control over bike/ped funding as a bargaining chip to get other concessions from Republicans. We don’t know if this is true or not, but bike advocates are stepping up their game, trying to hold Sen. Barbara Boxer to her promises to preserve funding support for small-scale street safety projects.

America Bikes took out an ad in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Boxer’s hometown paper. (Click on the image to see the full ad.)

Other groups are keeping the pressure on, too. The California Bicycle Coalition, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, and other California groups are getting in on the action. “7500 pedestrians killed in CA since 2000 @SenatorBoxer,” tweeted WOBO this morning. “Pass Cardin-Cochran, make walking/biking safer!”