Streetsblog Capitol Hill

In June 2009, a fatal crash on the D.C. Metro prompted federal lawmakers to consider adding a new layer of transit safety oversight. Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, introduced the National Metro Safety Act of 2009 to establish national safety standards for transit systems. It was never enacted, but it certainly raised the issue’s profile, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has not let it fall by the wayside.

U.S. DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III thinks the FTA needs greater authority as a safety regulator. Photo: Zimbio

This year, the Senate Banking Committee inserted a measure into the Senate’s two-year transportation bill that instructed states to “submit proposals for state safety oversight programs for rail fixed guideway public transportation systems,” which was touted as one of the bill’s selling points at the recent legislative conference of the American Public Transportation Association. The House bill also contained some provisions related to transit safety.

Some local transit advocates have warned against new federal safety requirements, arguing that they will impose excessive burdens on transit agencies, making it more difficult to provide a transportation service that already boasts a remarkable safety record.

Any new transportation bill is on hold for the moment, but transit safety is still on the feds’ agenda. Last Thursday, USDOT Inspector General Calvin Scovel defended expanded federal oversight at a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.

Subcommittee Chair Tom Latham (R-IA) asked Scovel whether the Federal Transit Administration had the wherewithal to establish a new safety program. (Latham’s subcommittee questioned FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff on the same topic last week.)

Scovel explained that his office had already issued recommendations to FTA — currently little more than a grant-maker – in January about how to go about setting up such a program. One of the program’s primary tasks will be to record transit safety hazards, including what Scovel called “near miss/close call elements,” similar to a safety metric already used by the Federal Aviation Administration. However, the FTA lacks the authority to follow through on all of DOT’s internal recommendations, he said.

Latham seemed skeptical that additional authority was warranted. Citing a lack of interstate commerce to be regulated, Latham asked, “Why the reason for a federal oversight alternative?”

“There aren’t many agencies that cross state lines,” Scovel admitted, “but there is a clear federal role” in ensuring transit safety standards. He added that deficiencies at local agencies, like the ones that emerged in the aftermath of the 2009 WMATA crash, underscored the need for closer federal oversight.

You can read the full testimony from Scovel and other witnesses here.

Something to keep in mind while the House GOP leadership toys with the idea of sending national transportation policy back to the 1950s…

In its annual “Views and Estimates” document [PDF], the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee indicates that when it comes to transportation policy, despite a few nods to transit, House Republicans still want to cut spending and let highway-centric state DOTs sort out the details. While the House transportation bill could be on its last legs, the document shows that the House GOP hasn’t given up on its quest to eliminate street safety programs for walking and biking while giving a free hand to states to build more sprawl projects.

The House GOP wants states to have more say over how transportation funds are spent -- so they can spend more of it opening new stretches of highway. Photo: Sumter County, FL

The T&I Committee submits this document each year to help shape the Budget Committee’s spending priorities. On the positive side of the ledger this time around, the committee prominently mentions strategic planning and intermodalism (in addition to familiar favorites like consolidation and cost-cutting) as primary goals. Committee Republicans also assert that the government’s pledge to spend Highway Trust Fund receipts on their intended use has been upheld. That affirmation flies in the face of the argument, often made by conservatives and road-gangers — including members of the T&I Committee — that funding transit out of that fund constitutes a violation of that contract.

And the committee states its opposition to the underfunding of transportation programs “under the guise of ‘budget reform’” – something they threw their full weight behind last summer, when they introduced a bill that would have hacked deeply into all facets of the program, cutting 30 percent across the board.

Elsewhere in the document are countless signs that House Republicans are sticking to their more ill-conceived policy ideas, as laid out in their multi-year transportation bill, H.R. 7. That bill differs dramatically from President Obama’s FY 2013 budget proposal, and the Views and Estimates document carefully notes each of those differences. Of course, H.R. 7 is on life support right now, so the Views and Estimates are best seen as the GOP fantasy of how to shape transportation policy.

T&I members, for their part, say that the president is living in a fantasy world too, when he asserts that his budget proposal is paid for with war savings. “The reduction in overseas military operations is the result of policy decisions that have already been made,” they say in the document. “The administration’s surface transportation reauthorization proposal would not achieve any additional savings.”

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Once every four years, politicians descend on a hard luck steel town in Northeast, Ohio called Youngstown.

Cleavon McClendon has been staying at a shelter in Youngstown, Ohio since he lost his job due to poor transportation options. Photo: Huffington Post

With a 50 percent poverty rate — the worst in the country — Youngstown makes a compelling a campaign speech backdrop, illustrating everything that is wrong with government, or maybe America. Mitt Romney appeared there this week on the eve of Super Tuesday.

The irony of the situation is, of course, that decades of promises have done little to improve the city’s lot. Since the decline of the steel industry that was its lifeblood 40 years ago, life has been very hard here for many people here. Despite recent promising efforts to rebuild the city around tech startups and downtown living, there’s definitely a class of people being left behind, with few options.

And transportation is at the heart of the problem.

Tom Zeller Jr., writing for the Huffington Post, summed up the problem facing Youngstown’s poor:

Exit the Madison Avenue Expressway onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, just beyond a road sign advertising the Museum of Industry and Labor, and an elegant, pre-war building, red brick and multi-gabled, rises on your right. Built in 1931 and the former home of the West Federal YMCA branch, it is now owned by the Rescue Mission of Mahoning Valley, which houses dozens of this town’s homeless residents.

Cleavon McClendon, who recently lost his job working at a Bob Evans restaurant, is among them.

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Last June, Transportation for America brought the nation’s attention to the fact that older Americans are increasingly stuck in the suburbs without adequate transportation options, leading them to see family and friends and even doctors less. That same month, the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on transportation access for older Americans.

Not all mobility improvements for seniors involve getting in a car. Photo by Dan Burden via Transportation for America.

The debate raged: Was transit expansion the answer to the mobility crisis? Or should seniors be moving to more walkable neighborhoods? Could resource-starved local transportation authorities support more paratransit services? Or would driverless cars save the day, as proposed by Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute?

Now, a transportation research group known as TRIP has teamed up with AASHTO to produce a new report on how to keep baby boomers mobile as they age [PDF]. Their solution: brighter signs and wider lanes.

TRIP and AASHTO also mention designing and operating roads to accommodate all users – “when appropriate.” They throw a few bones to pedestrians, like refuge islands and countdown signals. But they must not have been thinking about the safety of those pedestrians when they suggested widening lanes, adding left-turn lanes, and making roadway curves more gradual. As David Burwell of the Carnegie Endowment’s climate program says, those changes would just create “more pavement for those pesky walkers and bicyclists to cross.” TRIP also suggests adding rumble strips to alert drivers when they’re leaving the lane – and, of course, to leave cyclists riding on the shoulder miserably saddle-sore by the end of their ride.

And as for “clearer, brighter and simpler signage with larger lettering, including overhead indicators for turning lanes and overhead street signs” – the number one recommendation in the report? “Great idea,” said Burwell. “And how about the pedestrians, bicyclists and other road users — maybe we all should be required to carry bright signs in large letters saying ‘Please don’t hit me!’”

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Northeastern Republicans, like New York's Nan Hayworth and Pennsylvania's Mike Fitzpatrick, have signed on to an amendment, sponsored by Manhattan Democrat Jerry Nadler, that would restore dedicated federal funding for transit.

The House GOP bill, drafted with significant input from Speaker John Boehner’s office, would eliminate mass transit’s dedicated funding stream, first signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1982. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former House Republican, has called it “the worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen during 35 years of public service.”

Some congressional Republicans, especially those who represent transit riders, agree that de-funding transit would be unacceptable. The Nadler amendment has bipartisan support from six Democrats and six Republicans. The GOP side includes New York’s Chris Gibson, Bob Turner, Michael Grimm and Nan Hayworth, as well as Ohio’s Steve LaTourette and Pennsylvania’s Mike Fitzpatrick.

Turner, who represents an urban district where almost half of all commuters take transit to work, will not vote for the transportation bill in its current form, nor will LaTourette. Though not a sponsor of Nadler’s amendment, Long Island GOP rep Peter King has also spoken out against the bill’s anti-transit provisions and is currently expected to vote against the bill.

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When the House Ways and Means Committee voted to divert all gas tax revenue away from transit projects, severing transit’s only dedicated source of federal funds, they were essentially throwing transit riders under the bus.

The Potomac & Rappahannock Transportation Commission, which operates bus and commuter rail lines in Virginia, would need to cut service and raise fares under the House's proposed changes to transit funding. Photo: PotomacLocal

While the House’s official stance is that their proposal still somehow guarantees funding for transit, it really does anything but. ”It’s not dedicated, it’s not stable, it’s not predictable… and it’s not clear where exactly that money is coming from,” said Francisca Porchas, lead coordinator for the advocacy organization Transit Riders for Public Transportation. “For regular bus riders, it’s going to mean completely pulling the rug out from under them.”

It’s not like mass transit has been flying high lately, either. Over the past three years, there’s been an onslaught of fare hikes, service cuts, and layoffs at American transit agencies, even as ridership hit record highs. Some 97,000 employees in the transit and ground transportation industry lost their jobs in 2009 alone.

Forcing transit to fight for funds from the general budget will also force transit agencies to make cuts immediately. Transit agencies like Virginia’s Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission would likely need to cut service and raise fares just as a contingency, since federal funds make up some 15-20 percent of PRTC’s total budget, and state and local governments lack the wherewithal to step in if that money disappeared.

Furthermore, with their future funding in doubt, agencies will be forced to borrow money at higher interest rates, adding another level of costs to plans to add new capacity. That promises to bleed over into the basic services that agencies provide, making the trend of service cuts and fare hikes even worse.

“Where many transit agencies are trying to advance capital expansion, they are doing so instead of maintaining current service,” Porchas explained. “Transit agencies will be making some tough choices, and they’ll prioritize capacity expansion over operating and maintaining their system” if federal funding is suddenly threatened, she said.

The last piece of the Senate’s two-year transportation reauthorization proposal will be marked up by the Finance Committee tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. The committee was tasked with finding approximately $12 billion to bridge the projected shortfall of the Highway Trust Fund over the life of the bill. So far, according to a summary released by Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), they have found a little over $10.4 billion:

Sen. Schumer had made restoring the pre-tax commuter transit benefit a priority in 2012. Photo: AP

• $3.7 billion transferred from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund, already funded by a slice of the federal gas tax
• $2.8 billion from reducing a tax credit on certain biofuels
• $2.5 billion from taxes on imported cars, redirected from the general fund to the HTF
• $0.7 billion from the “gas guzzler tax,” also redirected from the general fund
• $0.7 in back taxes collected after revoking passports of serious offenders, assuming offenders would rather pay the feds than lose their passport

Furthermore, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has sponsored an amendment that would restore parity between the pre-tax commuter benefits for transit and parking. There had been parity between transit and parking pre-tax benefits since the Stimulus Act was passed in 2009, but the transit benefit was slashed in half — from $230 a month to $125 — when the measure expired on January 1st. Schumer’s amendment would make the parity permanent.

Live updates will be available tomorrow on twitter (#TranspoMarkup).

Today at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, four members of New York’s congressional delegation joined the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in decrying House GOP efforts to drastically alter how the federal government supports transit in cities.

Reps. Joe Crowley, Charlie Rangel, Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney joined MTA chief Joe Lhota to decry the House Republicans' attempt to end dedicated federal funding for transit. Photo: Noah Kazis

Under the House’s plan, instead of receiving a roughly 20 percent cut of the federal gas tax, transit would receive a one-time transfer from the general fund. In theory, at least. In practice, there would be no guarantees that transit would receive any funding.

Noah Kazis, from our sister blog in New York, has more from today’s presser:

Charlie Rangel, former chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, which passed the anti-transit provision, said he asked influential House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan where the money to pay for transit would come from in the general fund. “The answer was they did not know at that time,” said Rangel.

Other new rules that the speakers found objectionable would no longer require states to set aside an extra 1 percent of funds for transit in cities of over 200,000 residents, and would prohibit transit authorities that operate bus and rail services from receiving grants from the “bus and bus facilities fund.”

The House Ways and Means committee has just passed a bill that would kick transit out of the highway trust fund, casting aside a 30-year history of providing a dedicated funding source for federal transit programs. Transit instead would be funded by a transfer from the general fund, which would have to be offset by cuts elsewhere to avoid raising the deficit. As US PIRG’s Dan Smith said yesterday, this is like saying that transit funding will come from the Tooth Fairy.

House Ways & Means' Dave Camp (R-MI) and Sander Levin (D-MI) do not see eye to eye on funding transit. Photo: Zimbio

The attack on transit has drawn opposition from an unprecedentedly broad coalition of over 600 groups, including many that do not often find themselves on the same side of an issue. Opponents of the bill include noted transit advocates APTA and T4America, and traditionally pro-highway groups such as AASHTO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The conservative Club for Growth has even gone so far as to make the entire House transportation package a key vote, meaning members will be rewarded for opposing the bill. Rep. John Campbell has already said he has changed his position on the package, and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) laughed at the prospect of getting a positive rating from Club for Growth for “the first time in a while.”

An amendment proposed by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, which would have removed the provision altering transit’s revenue source, was defeated along party lines during mark up this morning. However, two Republicans — Erik Paulsen of Minnesota and Vern Buchanan of Florida — broke ranks with their party and voted against the underlying bill. The bill passed anyway by a vote of 20-17.

Despite repeated attempts by Republicans to present the bill as placing transit funding on surer footing, the bill drew vocal opposition from Democrats such as ranking member Sander Levin, who said it “undermines the very structure of the Highway Trust Fund.” Blumenauer said the bill relied on “fantasy accounting” to justify a $40 billion transfer from the general fund to cover transit, and McDermott bemoaned the lack of long-term thinking behind the bill.

Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York even asked Chairman Dave Camp if there was a precedent for the Ways and Means committee to demand a complete restart of transportation authorization efforts. When informed that there was not, Rangel responded, “Well, you can be a leader, then.”

The letter from coalition members opposing the Ways and Means bill is after the jump.

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