Streetsblog Capitol Hill

The House transportation bill will be marked up by the Transportation & Infrastructure committee tomorrow morning, and advocates are fighting for amendments that would improve the provisions for active transportation and transit.

The Cherry Creek trail running from downtown Denver 40 miles out to the suburbs was partially funded by TE grants. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

The first amendment, introduced by Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI), would restore the Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School programs, consolidated into a single “Transportation Improvement Program.” TE and SRTS have been two of the most important sources of funds for bicycle and pedestrian projects, and right now the House bill would eliminate dedicated funding for both programs.

According to a draft summary of the amendment, states would need to reserve an amount of money for TIP equal to the amount they currently reserved for TE and SRTS. TE-supported activities would no longer include transportation museums, depriving House leadership of one of their favorite talking points.

A second amendment would require states to prioritize bridge repair projects over the construction of new highways. As it currently stands, the House bill imposes little oversight on states that opt to spend on expanding highways.

A third amendment would provide operating assistance to transit agencies, a provision that the Senate has included in its transit bill to help prevent painful service cuts and fare hikes during economic downturns. However, neither of the bridge and transit amendments has a sponsor in the House, and all amendments must be submitted by 3:00 p.m. today in order to be considered at tomorrow morning’s markup.

Transportation for America and AmericaBikes have launched online portals for citizens to voice their support for these amendments.

On our walk down the memory lane of 2011 so far, we’ve talked about some downers, some inspirations, some triumphs, and some struggles. Check out our first two installments of year-end Streetsie award nostalgia. Here’s some more.

Best Obama Plan That Died a Slow and Horrible Death This Year: How to choose, when there were so many? The president laid out a big, bold, ambitious transportation plan for the next six years but then stayed mum on the all-important question of how to fund it, and so, predictably, it died. His American Jobs Act included $50 billion for infrastructure projects, including at least $13 billion for rail and transit. It, too, went nowhere fast.

Obama's high-speed rail plans took a fast train to nowhere. Photo: America 2050

That wasn’t Obama’s fault, but if you’re looking for a reason to be angry at him, look no further than the ozone pollution rules the EPA was going to strengthen. The president froze at the last minute and decided to hold off another couple years, to give the economy a chance to recover (or business interests a chance to vote for him). The new ozone standard would have saved an estimated 12,000 lives and made transportation reforms essential.

But who could blame the 47 percent of you who awarded the Streetsie for saddest death of an Obama program to high-speed rail? Congress takes every opportunity to yank money away from the program, three Republican governors have very publicly thumbed their noses at federal funds, and the only true high-speed rail line with the potential to be truly transformative is in deep doo-doo in California. So much for 80 percent access in 25 years.

Non-Presidential Vices: Yes, we had our share of letdowns from President Obama this year. But not all our disappointments were related to him. We were also bummed to see plans scrapped for the Woodward Light Rail line in Detroit, and the failure of the Seattle car tab fee, which would have gone to transit, bike/ped and road maintenance. And certainly we were disappointed that the Senate transportation bill, in the end, didn’t keep dedicated funding for bike/ped. But the Streetsie for the biggest letdown has to go to the bait-and-switch the House Republicans pulled about funding their transportation plan.

It was simple enough when they were threatening to cut spending by a third so as not to overspend Highway Trust Fund receipts. Just about everyone hated the idea. But then the GOP said they’d match current levels and it seemed the best of both worlds – reasonable spending levels and a longer-term bill than the Senate was offering.

Hallelujah! So what’s the catch?

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How can you convince Americans that transportation is important enough to invest in?

That’s the question that brought together five former U.S. Transportation Secretaries this week at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

Former DOT Chief James Burnley took a swipe at Transportation Enhancements and the stimulus.

James Burnley was deputy secretary and then secretary under President Reagan. He took the position that “75 percent” of the public “gives the thumbs down to paying more for transportation” because we’re giving them the wrong argument about why it matters. He took a jab at President Obama’s stimulus program:

We have to stop treating transportation infrastructure as a short-term jobs program. It didn’t work by any conventional definition of what “working” means. We all knew –those of us who have expertise in the field – it would not work in terms of short-term stimulus.

Because it takes time – it takes years for that money to actually be spent and people to be hired. We need to convince the American people that we need to invest in transportation infrastructure because we need to invest in transportation infrastructure. If we sell that idea – not as a jobs program, but because it affects the ability of our economy to grow over time, our international competitiveness and all the other things that we believe it affects, then we’ve got a fighting shot at convincing the American people that the resources that we believe ought to be devoted to transportation should be devoted to it.

That’s a legitimate point, and Streetsblog has made the same argument – that selling transportation as a jobs program undersells the true value of transportation. But there are a few problems with what Burnley is saying. First, when asked to tax themselves at the local or state level for transportation improvements, 75 percent of voters say yes. So maybe the case isn’t so hard to make after all.

And second, most Republicans – and many Democrats – fault the stimulus for not investing enough in infrastructure. Not quite seven percent of the package was devoted to infrastructure, and many critics say that’s why the stimulus didn’t do more to create jobs. Certainly, the president’s desire for “shovel-ready” projects may have been naïve, which Obama himself has publicly admitted. But Burnley may have been over-simplifying things with his statement.

Meanwhile, Sam Skinner, who served under President George H.W. Bush, argued that too many bridges to nowhere have eroded public confidence. And it’s not just transportation, he said – government mishandling of Medicare and pensions and everything else leads to overall distrust that the government can handle anything at all, despite the fact that the transportation department has proven that it “actually can complete projects under budget and on time.”

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This month’s bipartisan deal on the MAP-21 transportation bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hinged on a compromise to make major changes to the popular and successful Transportation Enhancements (TE) program, which primarily funds projects for biking and walking. The final deal eliminates dedicated funding for TE, instead making a smaller amount of money available for funding bike/ped — and a host of other activities –under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program’s “Additional Activities” category (CMAQ-AA).

The Cherry Creek trail running from downtown Denver 40 miles out to the suburbs was partially funded by TE grants. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

TE, which previously received a dedicated 10 percent cut of all Surface Transportation Program funds ($878 million in 2010), will now be competing with Safe Routes to School and the Recreational Trails Program (the other major pots of previously dedicated bike/ped funding) as part of CMAQ-AA, which will be funded at TE’s 2009 level of $833 million. (Note that although TE received 10 percent of all STP funds, it constituted less than two percent of the entire federal transportation program.)

In an even more dramatic shift, bike/ped-averse state governments will be able to opt out of CMAQ-AA altogether. The chart below, which distills a document published by America Bikes [PDF], illustrates the changes, project type by project type:

Running CMAQ Up the Flagpole…

Under the new system, most bicycle and pedestrian projects are still eligible for TE funds. What’s noteworthy are the other categories of projects that are now eligible, or not. Transportation museums are thrown out of the program, while eligibility is expanded for landscaping, environmental mitigation, and scenic and historic bridges. It’s some of those expansions that worry Jesse Prentice-Dunn of the Sierra Club, who told Streetsblog that projects like wetlands management—while obviously important as a matter of environmental stewardship—could squeeze out some bicycle and pedestrian projects. However, he applauds the last-minute decision to remove HOV lanes, another expensive category of projects, from eligibility under CMAQ.

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Now that the dust has settled, we have a few more notes on the Senate transportation bill that passed the EPW committee yesterday. Bike and pedestrian advocates are understandably shaken at seeing some major changes to the primary programs that fund their work. But here are some reasons to take heart:

Important bike/ped projects, like the Hot Metal bridge in Pittsburgh, will still get funded, even with the changes to the TE program in the Senate bill. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

• Getting Transportation Enhancements out of the Surface Transportation Program is not necessarily a bad thing. You know how Republicans love to say that Enhancements get an unfair “set-aside” of 10 percent of the surface transportation program? They just lost that talking point. Still, STP is now part of the new, broader Transportation Mobility Program, and bike/ped projects will still be eligible for funding under TMP, as well as under the dedicated TE pot.
• We’ve written before that eligibility for funding isn’t the same as having your own pot of dedicated money, and that’s certainly true. After all, states that “get it” will invest in smart active transportation projects, while state DOTs still stuck in the highway era won’t spend a dime on cycling and walking if they’re not forced to. But the fact is, they were finding ways around it anyway. Dedicated funds for bike/ped projects often became “rescission fodder” when it came time for states to give some dough back to Washington. States like Inhofe’s Oklahoma knew rescission time was coming and they held on to that money just so they could give it away.
• Give credit to Sen. Barbara Boxer and her staff, as well as other Democrats on the committee who fought hard for this. It’s kind of hard to believe that in a $109 billion bill, something as small as bike/ped funding nearly broke down negotiations, but it did, several times. A deal of some kind was necessary in order to get Republicans on the bill, and to placate people like Tom Coburn, who would stop at nothing to get rid of dedicated TE funding. Democrats fought hard to keep Republicans at the table and hold on to active transportation money in the bill. It could have been a lot worse: Republicans wanted TE out of the bill entirely and had to settle for “flexibility.”
• One of the road-related uses that looked like it would be allowed under TE was removed yesterday – that money will not be available to build HOV and HOT lanes.
• There’s still hope to make the bill better. Democrat Ben Cardin’s amendment [PDF] to leave transportation enhancement spending in the hands of local areas instead of states would have a huge impact, since cities and towns are much more likely to see the need for bike and ped infrastructure than states are.

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The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted unanimously this morning to pass a two-year transportation reauthorization bill, moving the bill one step closer to passage by the full Senate.

The Senate EPW bill represents a few steps forward and a few steps back. It won't transform America's car-based, oil-dependent transportation system. Photo: Raise the Hammer

Unlike in the House, where the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has full responsibility for the transportation bill, the Senate splits jurisdiction among several committees, so the saga isn’t over yet by a long shot. The Senate Banking Committee still needs to consider the transit part of the bill, Commerce will get its hands dirty on the rail portion, and Finance is going to figure out how to pay for the whole thing.

Non-Motorized Transportation Takes a Hit

Rarely have bike and pedestrian safety been so squarely at the center of a Congressional boxing match as during the debate over this bill. The fight over dedicated funding for bike/ped projects – much of it focused on the Transportation Enhancements program – threatened the delicate bipartisan consensus for this bill. What emerged was a compromise that placated even the most hardened TE haters like Sens. James Inhofe and Tom Coburn.

This morning, Sen. Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member on the committee and its chief TE opponent, explained the change.

There’s a difference of opinion and philosophy here as to how much money should be spent on things like bike trails, walking trails, highway beautification, museums and all that stuff. I think the compromise we came up with is a very good one because if a state wants to use that percentage – whether it’s 10 percent as it applies to the surface transportation or two percent of the total funding — they can instead put it in areas of unfunded mandates. And I can assure you there are enough unfunded mandates we have to comply with – I’m talking about endangered species, Americans with Disabilities, Historic Preservation and all that — we can use it. In my state of Oklahoma, that’s where we’re going to use ours. I think that is a great solution.

Sen. James Inhofe's home state of Oklahoma is now free to spend all its transportation money on roads.

What Inhofe is calling an “unfunded mandate,” however, is just part of the cost of building a road with federal funds. By allowing Transportation Enhancement money – previously reserved for non-motorized modes – to be used to offload some of the costs of building a highway, the Senate gives a green light to state DOTs to use every penny of that money for road-building expenses, if they want to. And if they don’t even want to do that, after 18 months, they can just opt out of the TE program altogether.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced (and then withdrew) an amendment to restore dedicated funding for bike and pedestrian programs, with support from several other Democratic senators. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) also wants to introduce amendments making it harder for states to “opt out” of the TE program by ensuring that they solicit localities for TE uses before refusing to use the funds. And Sen. Tom Carper withheld his amendment requiring states and MPOs to draft plans for reducing transportation-related oil consumption.

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Two competing versions of a transportation-related job creation bill went down yesterday in the Senate. The first, the Rebuild America Jobs Act (S.1769), was a Democratic proposal, modeled on President Obama’s job creation bill, to invest $50 billion for infrastructure and another $10 billion as seed money to create a new national infrastructure bank.

Bills to put unemployed construction workers back on the job keep going down in Congress.

Given Republican opposition to what they consider a repeat of a failed stimulus – and to an infrastructure bank they say is unnecessary at best and politicized at worst — the failure of the bill is no surprise. The bill garnered a slim majority — 51-49 — but not enough to overcome the threat of a GOP filibuster.

Meanwhile, the Republican proposal would have pushed back many health, safety, and environmental regulations that corporations consider onerous. Defeated in a 47-53 vote, the bill also would have extended SAFETEA-LU for two more years — nearly matching the length and spending levels in the bipartisan EPW proposal — without funding the shortfall such spending would cause to the Highway Trust Fund. The bill wouldn’t have been a “clean” extension of current law, though, since it eliminated the “set-aside” for bike and pedestrian infrastructure, making it the fourth attempt in less than two months by Senate Republicans to eliminate or weaken TE — and the fourth failure.

This morning, the Senate is debating two transportation-related bills: the Rebuild America Jobs Act (S.1769) and the Long-Term Surface Transportation Extension Act (S.1786).

Sen. Hatch makes yet another attempt to "give states the authority" to kill bike/ped spending.

The Rebuild America Jobs Act is a piece of President Obama’s jobs bill that was broken off in hopes that it could pass on its own. It would invest $50 billion on infrastructure projects and another $10 billion in seed money for an infrastructure bank, to be paid for with a 0.7 percent surtax on incomes over $1 million.

Taxing the rich and increasing government spending — now there’s a recipe for some partisan rancor.

So far Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell have traded barbs that each is just engaged in election-year sloganeering. Reid said 76 percent of the American people approve of the plan to tax the “top two-tenths of one percent.” But McConnell said those 76 percent might change their minds if they knew that “four out of five of those high-income individuals are actually business owners.” They haven’t talked much about the merits of infrastructure investment.

Note that not all of the big players who lined up behind increased investment and an infrastructure bank favor this bill. Bruce Josten of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, said yesterday in a letter to senators [PDF] that the Rebuild America Jobs Act “fails to provide the multi-year funding certainty and fails to establish the policy and program reforms sorely needed to create jobs and support economic growth” and “only continues to delay and frustrate the serious and much needed debate on the sustained long-term investment required to address America’s infrastructure crisis.”

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Bike/ped funding is pitching a perfect game in the Senate after Republicans swung (and missed) at the popular Transportation Enhancements program for the third time in two months. The final strike came this morning, when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul’s amendment to divert all TE funds to bridge repair failed spectacularly, garnering only 38 votes in favor, with 60 senators voting against.

Sen. Paul's amendment to divert bike/ped funds to bridge repair failed this morning. Photo: Run Rand Run

Paul continually asserted that the Transportation Enhancements program funds “beautification projects – such as movie theaters, squirrel sanctuaries, turtle tunnels and flower beds,” despite the fact that the program largely funds life-saving and pollution-reducing projects facilitating bicycle use and walking.

Paul had tried to present bike/ped programs and bridge safety as mutually exclusive by trying to shift money from the TE program to bridge repair. Transportation reformers (and mainstream reporters) cut right through that, showing that the money needed to fund bridge repair far outstrips what’s available in the modest TE program — and making the case that increased cycling (and decreased driving) does more to help keep bridges in good shape than this misguided amendment could ever do.

Plus, as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said on the Senate floor, Paul’s amendment could actually prevent some bridges from being fixed.

“The amendment prevents a bridge from being fixed if it is a historic bridge,” said Boxer. “There are thousands of those in this country, including the Brooklyn Bridge.” She also spoke in favor of keeping critical safety funds for bicycling.

Sen. Paul remarked after the vote that he was “disappointed” that his colleagues “failed to see” crumbling bridges, including two major ones in his home state of Kentucky, as a priority. But supporters of biking and walking infrastructure — as well as people who just care about smart funding decisions in Washington — are relieved that senators didn’t fall for the false choice Paul put before them.

Transportation for America will have a vote count online soon, so you can see how your senator voted.

Last month, the Senate’s notorious vote-blocker, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, tried to obstruct Senate process until they voted on his measure to take bike/ped funding out of the transportation bill. He failed.

Sen. Rand Paul is trying to strip bike/ped programs out of the federal transportation bill in the name of bridge repair. Photo: Moderate Voice

Then last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) suggested keeping bike/ped money but stripping out lots of other budget items that serve cyclists and pedestrians (as well as everybody else), like streetscaping. He failed too.

And now here comes Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, one of the kookiest of Congress’s Tea Party-affiliated newcomers, with a brilliant idea to shift all bike/ped funding — and everything else that gets funded through the embattled Transportation Enhancement program — over to bridge repair. Paul characterizes TE as a fund for “turtle tunnels and squirrel sanctuaries and all this craziness.”

Now, we’re all in favor of bridge repair. We agree that the crumbling of our nation’s infrastructure is shameful and dangerous. But really, you’re going to restore bridge safety by cutting bike safety? Get real, Senator.

Paul’s spooky amendment is scheduled for a vote the day after Halloween. It’ll be attached to the Senate transportation appropriations bill, which comes up for a vote that day by the full chamber.

Darren Flusche of the League of American Bicyclists noted in his blog post that Sen. Paul should let the Senate EPW Committee, which has jurisdiction over writing the next transportation bill, do its job. Flusche argues that the committee’s November 9 bill markup “would be the appropriate time to discuss changes to the overall transportation program, not during the appropriations process.”

Transportation for America recently criticized Sen. Paul for his misguided attack on active transportation:

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