The candidates have given precious few hints as to what their transportation policies would look like if elected. Photo: Lehigh Valley Live

A common theme across most candidates’ platforms is the elimination of federal programs in favor of state ones, and incentives (read: tax cuts) for the private sector to come in and do things themselves. A transportation policy under any member of the GOP field would likely favor state infrastructure banks over a national one, favor loan programs over grants, and favor automotive infrastructure over bike/ped/transit. But the truth is that we just don’t know, since for the most part they won’t say.

Here’s a recap of what’s on record:

• As senator, Rick Santorum was honored by APTA for his commitment to mass transit. He supported more money for Pennsylvania transit in SAFETEA-LU, saying, “Public transportation provides communities with an affordable means of mobility, offers individuals greater opportunity, saves energy, and reduces congestion and pollution.” During his time in Congress, he voted in favor of most transportation bills, except for IS-TEA in 1998, which passed the Senate by a margin of 96 to 4.
• At a September debate, Rick Perry vowed to rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure, but attacked Obama’s proposal to rebuild America’s.
• Back in February, Michele Bachmann knocked Obama for spending “$53 billion we don’t have on rail projects” (though she was responding to the 2012 budget, which only contained $8.3 billion for rail), but she had championed “smart and targeted investment” in highway construction in a couple of 2009 op-eds.
• Ron Paul’s press secretary recently told the New York Times that the Congressman “thinks high-speed rail is a very exciting idea and could be a very worthwhile project in many cases.” Rep. Paul signed a letter in 2009 asking for federal money for high-speed rail in Texas, but Paul’s spokesperson explained that this was less about supporting high-speed rail than it was about ensuring Texas’ slice of federal dollars. (High-speed rail? Golly, no! I was just after the pork! …And pork is bad!)
• Mitt Romney told audiences in New Hampshire and South Carolina that he would support borrowing as a way to pay for new infrastructure (especially roads and bridges), provided that infrastructure came with a revenue stream. (As we’ve reported, Romney earned a reputation as a smart-growther as governor of Massachusetts.)
• And then there’s Newt Gingrich, who professed a desire to “go head-to-head with the Chinese” in developing and implementing maglev train technology. But that was in 2009, and he hasn’t said anything similar since.

Not much to go on, but fear not. Though it may not feel like it, we are only at the beginning of the primary process, so there should be plenty of time for the candidates to make their views known.

The New Hampshire primary is January 10. Campaigning heavily there is Jon Huntsman, who touted his infrastructure record en route to winning two gubernatorial terms in Utah.

The new Ridesharing Institute would have liked to see more support for carpooling in the Senate transportation bill. Photo: Matt Duench's Blog

They call it “a missed opportunity.”

In a blog post for the Eno Foundation, where she serves on the Board of Advisors, Cynthia Burbank of Parsons Brinckerhoff (and vice chair of the new Ridesharing Institute) lamented the exclusion of ridesharing in the Senate bill (though, she acknowledges, “almost everyone” overlooks carpooling and vanpooling). She groups the two modes together to call it “C/V.”

C/V currently serves 10 percent of work trips – more than transit, biking, and walking combined. It saves money for households and increases options for commuters everywhere. It is a policy and modal option that could improve system performance and reduce congestion, could be planned and implemented in one to two years, does not require an EIS or streamlining angst, complements and reinforces transit, and works as well in rural and small/mid size metros as it does in the mega cities. But it has been in decline, in part because of lack of Federal emphasis and support. We need to reverse that trend.

SAFETEA-LU, the current transportation law, includes many mentions of encouraging C/V but no dollar amount to support it. Official transportation policy has encouraged carpooling since ISTEA passed in 1991. The law “hereby declared” that “special effort should be made to promote commuter modes of transportation which conserve energy, reduce pollution, and reduce traffic congestion” and directed the transportation secretary to “assist both public and private employers and employees who wish to establish carpooling and vanpooling programs” and so on. Still – no money.

Perhaps the most significant federal investment in ridesharing is the implementation of HOV lanes, and FHWA doesn’t quantify the amount it spends on that separately from the amount it spends on other road maintenance projects in the states.

Some transit agencies sponsor ride-share matching, or even subsidize van pools, with Federal Transit Administration dollars — but the FTA doesn’t have any data on how much federal money is spent for these activities.

Burbank says MAP-21 “has some helpful C/V provisions, including eligibility under the Transportation Mobility Program, non-degradation for HOV lane performance, and provision for EV charging at park-and-ride lots.” But she’d also like to see eligibility in the National Highway Performance Program. (Of course, eligibility is no guarantee of actual funding — bike/ped is technically eligible under that program, but no one’s expecting bike/ped projects to see a flood of funding come from that source.)

A sensible idea Burbank puts forward is to set performance requirements based on “person trips and passenger miles (as well as freight throughput) as opposed to the old vehicle throughput measures of the past.” She also wants more research dedicated to innovating and piloting carpooling options and a mandate to USDOT to develop and implement a strategic plan to “double carpooling and vanpooling within 10 years.”

All of that could be part of a meaningful national goal of reducing congestion and carbon emissions. The current bill includes performance measures, but none that would lead to such significant work incentivizing ridesharing and other means of bringing down vehicle-miles-traveled.

Meanwhile, Burbank, in her post, points to two seemingly contradictory trends. Ridesharing is down below ten percent, according to the American Community Survey – a big drop from its 12.2 percent share in 2000. This, Burbank blames on a lack of federal support. But she also says it’s a perfect time for a ridesharing comeback:

Today, new forms of C/V have tremendous potential, using modern information technology, iPhone apps, slugging, “flexible” or “casual” C/V, as well as expanded employer C/V programs.

If iPhone apps and other third-party interventions and informal innovations are the new frontier of ridesharing, is it really incumbent on the federal program to make these happen? Other options are available at the local level or even the employer level (not the federal level) like preferential parking for carpoolers, though it’s very hard to enforce.

Of course, one transportation expert suggested, the real solution is “just stop building so damn much parking.” Maybe the best ride-sharing incentive the feds could adopt is simply to stop paying employees to park their private vehicles at work.

This smiling man (THUD Chair Tom Latham) is getting ready to take the axe to prized livability programs. Photo: Iowa Independent

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) is planning deep cuts to many programs, some reminiscent of House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s notorious budget proposal, which wanted to slash transportation spending by about a third.

The subcommittee is led by Iowa Republican Tom Latham, whom we profiled when he took the gavel. At the time, we were worried he would end up cutting important livability programs, and here he is, doing exactly that.

At least transit and highway spending share the pain, both getting cut the same 34 percent. Highway funding goes from about $41 billion to $27 billion; transit funding (excluding New Starts) goes from $8.3 billion to $5.3 billion.

Bizarrely, the bill regresses to a pre-cooperation era and returns to the age of agency silos. One great accomplishment of the Obama administration has been the Sustainable Communities Partnership which joined USDOT, HUD and the EPA to work together on common development programs, planning inexorably linked programs of housing and transportation in conjunction with each other, and in consultation with the environmental regulator. But the appropriations bill prohibits HUD from using any funding for anything related to the Partnership.

In his excellent analysis of the dismal news, Transportation for America’s Stephen Lee Davis also delivers this blow: the innovative TIGER grants, TIGGER grants and high-speed rail programs are cut entirely. And more, Davis writes:

The New Starts transit program, which essentially funds all new transit system construction, gets cut to $1.55 billion down from $2 billion in FY10. In addition, a policy tweak is made that requires state or local funds to make up more than 50 percent of any new grant agreements. Or put another way, the feds will no longer cover more than half of any New Starts transit project, exacerbating an existing gap between the share the government will pay for transit vs. highway projects. (Highway projects get around 80 percent of their funds from the federal government.)

Existing passenger rail service faces deep cuts of its own. Amtrak’s capital budget (new rolling stock, new lines, equipment, etc.) is cut by $24 million (from $922 million to $898 million; down from $1 billion in 2010), but the operations budget is where Amtrak takes a big hit, going from $563 million to $227 million. On top of that, an important policy change will prevent Amtrak from using any of their operating funds on state-supported lines — lines where a state has partnered with Amtrak to increase passenger rail service and ridership. To put that change in perspective, in 2010 9 million rides were taken on state-supported routes.

Amtrak State-Supported routes, from the T&I Committee report

The bill also prohibits any new RRIF loans or loan guarantees. RRIF is a loan program, like TIFIA for rail projects, which has received significant attention over the last year. Cumbersome rules and application processes have resulted in the program being seriously undersubscribed, spending just $1 billion of the $35 billion it has at its disposal. Republicans have held hearings to work on improving the program, but now it appears they’d rather just leave it for dead.

There is a silver lining to this disastrous bill, Davis says, and it’s that the incompetence and intransigence that we’ve seen lately in Congress will keep it from becoming law — for a long time, at least. Remember, the fiscal year ends September 30 — the red-letter day when the current SAFETEA-LU extension and the gas tax also expire — and Congress is nowhere near ready to pass a consensus 2012 budget out of both houses.

That means that we can look forward to another budget extension, and possibly a whole string of extensions. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a clean extension — lately, Republicans have been flexing their muscle to demand spending cuts, even on extensions. But we won’t see this bill enacted for quite a while, if ever.

Grand Central stood eerily empty as the MTA shut down all transit service. Photo: MTA/Marjorie Anders.

Sometimes the best way to understand the ordinary is to examine the extraordinary. Watching Hurricane Irene wreak havoc on the entire transportation system from North Carolina to the Canadian border brought certain patterns and questions into high relief. Here’s some of what we thought about while the power was down.

Most striking to me was the palpable absence of the transit system in New York City. The New York Times called the closure of the subways “perhaps the most unsettling element of a prodigious storm preparation effort.” Even on national television, the idea of New York City existing without transit was held up as the ultimate symbol of the seriousness of the storm. A lot of people seemed only to realize the absolute centrality of the transit system in its absence.

Life without transit also highlighted the value of building places with multiple transportation options. In the streetcar suburb where I was during the storm, people ventured out on foot to see neighbors, survey damage and even head to the few open stores long before most felt safe driving or transit service had resumed. Taxis provided a backup transportation option for normally transit-dependent New Yorkers who really needed to get somewhere.

In contrast, those with only one means of travel — such as drivers in upstate New York, where floods rendered hundreds of roads and bridges impassable — are stuck at home. Irene helped us see the value of multiple transportation modes, or even multiple options within a single mode.

The hurricane also cast the decisions we make about transportation safety in a different light. Storm-related incidents killed 21 Americans, six of whom died in their cars. With most people holed up, though, and those behind the wheel proceeding slowly and carefully, it’s possible that more than six people might have died over a weekend of driving in the affected area, or that the hurricane kept overall traffic injuries down. If that were in fact the case, what would it tell us about efforts to prevent people from being killed and maimed in traffic crashes?

Along those lines, as of last Friday, New York City considered shutting down taxi service on safety grounds. It was ultimately decided that the need for mobility outweighed the need for caution — an interesting case of transportation goals in conflict. It was instructive to watch drivers and pedestrians negotiate normally signalized intersections with the power off — when does the motorist decide to yield? — and to observe the natural traffic calming effects of fallen tree branches.

What did Hurricane Irene make you think about the way we get around?

It's working in San Francisco. Now USDOT can help expand dynamic pricing to other cities around the country. Image: SFMTA.

Well now, that’s an understatement.

Between the uncertainty of the supercommittee and the bicameral bickering over the size and length of a bill, the only thing we can be sure of is that we’re heading toward yet another extension of SAFETEA-LU when it expires at the end of next month – if the two parties can agree to even that. Negotiations broke down over a whole lot less recently, when Congress let the FAA shut down over a measly couple million bucks.

But even if it’s a while before we see legislation passed that enacts new policies, there’s a lot the USDOT can do with existing authority to make smarter transportation investments that reduce congestion and carbon emissions. NRDC has documented them in a new report, “Federal Actions to Reduce Energy Use in Transportation” [PDF].

• Dynamic pricing. Fifteen states are participating in the DOTs Value Pilot Pricing Program, which allows states more flexibility in levying tolls and other pricing measures. San Francisco’s innovative new parking pricing system is a fruit of this program. Other variable pricing measures, like congestion pricing, could also help reduce fuel use and pollution, says Lovaas.
• Realism. USDOT should enforce the fiscal constraints of regional long-range transportation plans, being upfront about realistic costs. Lovaas says this will address a “pet peeve” of his and force states to reconsider “costly highway projects that have been on the books forever.”
• Transit benefits. Without further authority, USDOT could expand and promote the transit benefit program, which allows companies to give employees $240 per month in tax-free transit and vanpool benefits. Lovaas says the program is currently run by the IRS without any DOT involvement, and is vastly undersubscribed.

• Reclassify fuel. States and metros can generally only use federal funds for capital expenses, not operating costs. That leads to major maintenance backlogs, even while states invest in shiny new projects (which will then need to be maintained, and won’t be). One solution? Consider fuel a capital cost.
• Energy-efficient modes of transportation. Even without a new bill, USDOT could invest more in public transportation, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and telecommuting. For starters, it could simplify the New Starts process for transit expansion, streamlining environmental review requirements and encouraging public-private partnerships. It could also take on more of the cost-escalation risk of new projects so that the risk doesn’t scare states away from taking on bold new projects, the way New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie used cost escalation as justification for killing the ARC tunnel project.
• Land use. Though NRDC admits that “federal influence here is indirect,” it says the FTA should consider land use among its evaluation criteria when selecting New Starts projects.

Those are just a few of NRDC’s ideas. It’s enough to give transportation reformers a glimmer of hope that, even if an innovative new bill may be a long way off, innovation can keep on going.

Transit investment lagged in regions where MPO boards did not give equal representation to city populations, Detroit (SE Michigan) being an especially bad example. In more democratic metros, investment was much more balanced. Image: Nelson, 2003

Do you know the name of your local Metropolitan Planning Organization or Council of Government? Most Americans don’t. In fact, most people probably have no idea these agencies even exist, let alone what they do. Yet they are surprisingly powerful and play a substantial role in shaping the places where we live and work.

Led by unelected boards, MPOs and COGs, as they’re known, are a special breed among government agencies. They lack the authority to issue taxes or impose laws. As such, they go largely unmentioned in the media and are mostly unknown to local residents, outside of the most wonkish circles. But the low profile of MPOs and COGs belies their considerable power.

Despite their limitations, they represent the strongest form of regional governance we’ve got in the United States, crossing city and county lines. More importantly, they disperse hundreds of millions of federal transportation dollars annually. While these agencies often distribute transportation funds more fairly than state DOTs, many of them are structured in a way that favors sprawl and undermines cities.

MPOs and COGs can be profoundly undemocratic. They are governed by boards of public officeholders, but there is no requirement that they be in any way representative of the region’s population. In fact, the general rule that governs the composition of MPO boards is “one place, one vote,” rather than the more traditional “one person, one vote.” This often produces decisions dramatically skewed toward suburban and rural interests.

For example, greater Milwaukee’s MPO, known by the unwieldy acronym SEWRPC, is governed by a board of 21 members, three from each of the counties that make up the planning region. That means that the city of Milwaukee — population nearly 600,000 — has zero representatives on the commission that distributes millions of dollars for transportation throughout the region. It is not guaranteed any votes. The city’s only voting power comes from the three seats given to Milwaukee County — and those must be spread between the central city and many suburbs. Meanwhile, rural Walworth County — population 100,000 — is guaranteed three votes.

Milwaukee is an especially egregious case. But unfortunately, this general pattern is more the norm than the exception. A 1999 Brookings Institution study [PDF] found that central cities were under-represented in as many as 92 percent of MPOs and COGs.

That bias can have a strong impact on policy, further research has shown. A 2003 study by researchers at Virginia Tech found that for each additional suburban member on an MPO board, there was a 1 to 9 percent decrease in funding for transit — with highways being the favored alternative.

Researchers examined three regions where boards were unrepresentative and three regions where they were proportional to population. They found significant differences: Transit investment varied from a low of 3.2 percent in Detroit (unrepresentative) to 50 percent in Seattle (proportional).

Across the country, the composition of MPO boards varies wildly. The only federal requirement is that at least 75 percent of the region be represented in some capacity, said Delania Hardy, director of the Association of Metropolitan Planning Agencies. And while there are plenty of examples of places where there is room for improvement, she said, there are also good examples.

While Milwaukee represents one extreme, Portland embodies another. This region is the only place in the country where the MPO board is not only representative of the region’s population, but also directly elected by the local population.

In late 2009, Myron Orfield, author of “American Metropolitics,” set out to determine which metro areas had the most effective regional planning agencies. He evaluated the country’s 25 largest metro regions [PDF] on indicators such as sprawl, segregation, growth and fiscal equity. Portland was the runaway standout.

“They have a very good urban growth boundary. They cluster jobs at defined job centers. They require that all communities build their fair share of affordable housing. They have low and decreasing segregation,” he said. “On every measure that we care about, it does well.”

Outside of having directly elected MPO representatives, Portland has some other advantages, a strong land use policy framework being the most notable. But allowing the public to directly elect the people who will shape their region is also important, Orfield said.

“If you don’t have it up for election, it’s really hard for people to participate,” he said. “It’s sort of a general principle of democracy.”

During the last round of negotiations over the federal transportation bill, in 2009, Orfield joined the National Association of City Transportation Officials in lobbying for MPO reform. His legislation would have required proportional representation for directly-elected MPO boards. The reforms were adopted into the transportation reauthorization bill put forward by Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) but never became law.

Some communities are making progress toward important sustainability and equity goals on their own. Orfield pointed to Chicago, Washington D.C., Seattle, San Diego, and even Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Regions with more proportional representation tend to do a better job,” he said.

Detroit's MPO is dominated by rural and suburban interests. Its transit system is uniquely dysfunctional among large metro areas. Photo: Beaumont Enterprise

On the other hand you have Detoit’s SEMCOG, which is responsible for dispersing $1 billion in federal funds annually. In 2006, SEMCOG was the subject of a civil rights lawsuit over the composition of its executive committee. At the time, the agency had allocated three delegates to the city of Detroit, representing more than 900,000 people. Meanwhile, Livingston County — which has a population of less than 200,000 people — was given four delegates.

Discrepancies like this can be especially insidious for people of color. For example, at the time of the lawsuit, Detroit was more than 80 percent African-American. Meanwhile Livingston County, on the opposite extreme, is less than one percent African-American, according to a court deposition.

The suit was dismissed because the court determined the principle of “one person, one vote” does not apply to appointed positions. Five years later, not much has changed, says Ponscella Hardaway, director of MOSES, the low-income advocacy group that brought suit against SEMCOG.

In a symbol of regional failure, Detroit is unique among large metros for operating separate transit systems for its central city and the surrounding suburbs — a byproduct of the Motor City’s stark racial segregation. That creates a logistical nightmare for transit riders.

SEMCOG “could have taken some leadership” on this issue, said Hardaway. “Their vision for regional cooperation is not matched with their actions. It’s almost like they’re a nonentity.”

As you might expect, the Detroit region performs poorly on the measures Orfield used to measure effective regional planning.

“It is really probably the worst in the country,” said Orfield. “Detroit builds massive highways into cornfields and doesn’t reinvest in the existing infrastructure or build transit. Detroit is a catastrophe.”

Bringing together transportation officials from 20 major cities to discuss progress on bikeway designs in the U.S. produced quite a few “aha moments,” said Birk. For one, transportation officials learned that many of the bikeway innovations they had been adopting from Europe aren’t as innovative as they had thought.

The protected bike lane on New York City's Ninth Avenue.

For example, Birk said, 20 American cities use bike boxes, one of the design features that isn’t specifically endorsed by the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and the American Association of Highway Transportation Officials’ design guide.

“It’s not like it’s some fringe thing anymore,” Birk said.

She added: “There’s a comfort in knowing that your colleagues are on the same wavelength.”

Conversations throughout the course of the NACTO guide development process also revealed that federal officials aren’t as unfriendly to new bike treatments as many city-level transportation officials had expected. Federal transportation officials have indicated that many of the 20 bike treatments recommended by NACTO are allowable within federal guidelines — while not explicitly endorsed — and therefore eligible for federal funding, Birk said.

“They’ve basically green-lighted a few of them a yellow-lighted a few others,” she said.

Birk described the conversations with federal transportation officials as “really effective and positive.”

Over the course of the past two decades, transportation officials from Portland to Washington, D.C. had separately come to the conclusion that they needed to adopt some bike treatments that had originated in Europe, such as cycle tracks and bike signals. But the lack of a guiding document forced each city to rely on its own experimentation, Birk said.

The NACTO group began working on the guide about a year ago. The product of their collaboration contains renderings, street cross-sections and other tools that will help local engineers zero in on the best practices in new bike treatments in use across the U.S. This will be particularly beneficial for cities that have less advanced bike infrastructure, Birk said. Baltimore, for example, is taking measures to implement NACTO’s recommendations, following the lead of trailblazers Portland, Minneapolis, San Francisco and New York.

“We expect there to be a big groundswell of American cities that will adopt these bicycle treatments,” Birk said. “That will lead to increased bicycle use and that will significantly improve safety.”

Another benefit of NACTO’s guide is that is it digital and available over the web. It’s important to distinguish the guide as a living document because by the time many of these types of guide are printed, they’re already out of date, Birk said.

Birk said NACTO’s Cities for Cycling committee still has a long way to go and they plan to continue working. One issue that isn’t addressed in the new design guide, for instance is how to handle potential conflicts between bikes and streetcars and bikes and buses.

Standing-room-only launch of Transportation 101. Photo: T4 America

Now there’s a more comprehensive cheat sheet. I’ll never again be at a loss to remember what the gas tax was before 1993 or how much money has been taken from the general fund to bail out the Highway Trust Fund or how many earmarks were included in SAFETEA-LU or the names of all the core highway programs. All of that information is included in Transportation for America’s new primer, “Transportation 101: An Introduction to Federal Transportation Policy.”

T4A was inspired to publish the document after November’s election ushered in 94 freshman House members and a handful of new Senators, many of whom are new to transportation policy. Twenty of the 59 members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee are new. Members, and perhaps more importantly, their staffers, would need to be caught up on the ins and outs of the reauthorization.

“It’s sort of like walking into a movie 15 minutes late, if you’re coming to the transportation debate right now,” said T4A’s Steve Davis. “There’s a lot of history that, if you’re just walking into the room right now, can be very confusing.”

Transportation 101 isn’t necessarily something that everyone will want to devour in one sitting, Davis acknowledges. (Of course, Streetsblog readers are another breed – I see you clearing out your agenda to spend some quality time with this document.) In any case, it will be a useful reference for legislative aides new to the issue who are tasked with becoming an expert overnight. And not just Congressional staff – Davis says they expect the document will be just as useful to T4A’s 500+ partner organizations.

T4A has its own platform on what would improve the nation’s transportation systems, but it’s gone light on the recommendations this time, preferring to give people a reference guide. The document includes some of the overarching conclusions of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission and the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. The only recommendations they make are outlined in broad strokes, without getting down to specifics on various modes:

• A national vision with clear goals
• More accountability and a focus on results
• Sustainable funding and innovative financing
• A better way to plan and pick projects

T4A’s Capitol Hill briefing to launch the publication drew a standing-room only crowd. The panel included Roy Kienitz, undersecretary for policy at U.S. DOT, former Virginia DOT secretary Pierce Homer, and other transportation all-stars.

Robert Puentes. Photo courtesy of the Brookings Institution.

Now the Brookings Institution jumps into the mix with its new report, “State Transportation Reform: Cut to Invest in Transportation to Deliver the Next Economy.” In it, author Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow at Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, blames state fiscal crises on poor policymaking in addition to diminishing resources.

The Brookings report, along with the SGA analysis, focuses on state decision-making around transportation funding. Puentes says that the focus on poor strategy at the state level is really an “indictment at the federal level that the federal government has abdicated responsibility to the states and doesn’t have much oversight on how federal transportation dollars are spent at the state level.”

Despite the importance of the transportation sector, which employs more than 4 million people in this country, Puentes says the process for allocating resources is “sadly out-dated”, taking a “peanut butter” approach, spreading money evenly (and thinly) across a state, rather than making “strategic, targeted investments.”

He highlights the “recent dust-up over high speed rail” to illustrate two points. First, “states and governors are still in the driver’s seat when it comes to transportation decisionmaking and project selection.” And second, federal money often comes with “on-going maintenance demands are more than [states] want to bear.” Sort of like a free puppy, he says. But whether it’s operational costs or anything else, federal money does come to states with responsibilities attached, and the states should prove that they’re capable of spending those dollars wisely.

It comes down to picking good projects. Rather than just funding all the bridge projects that come their way, state officials should consider outcomes, performance measures, and economic impact. In an interview, he said that even when projects do get vetted through a set of criteria, it’s often the wrong criteria.

For example, Maryland’s new Intercounty Connector – “If you’re measuring throughput or velocity of vehicles,” he said, “that’s certainly something to measure, and that’s certainly something the Departments of Transportation are comfortable with. The point we’re trying to make is that you’ve got to tie spending to other measures of importance, and particularly in a time of economic strife you’ve got to tie it to measures of economic growth and competitiveness.”

He recommends running projects through a cost-benefit analysis and that the projects selected should be the ones that provide a “strict return on investment criteria.” That doesn’t mean projects should only be chosen if they turn a profit, though – if they help people get to work or reduce carbon emissions, that’s a positive return on investment.

The report recommends prioritizing repair over expansion, focusing on reducing oil dependency, and including social equity as a central goal. Puentes also recommends that state governments copy the Obama administration’s inter-agency partnerships and create “super secretariats” combining transportation, economic development, commerce, housing, land conservation, and other infrastructure such as water and sewer. California and Massachusetts already have them.

Puentes sees State Infrastructure Banks and public-private partnerships (P3s) as good ways to fund transportation projects. He emphasizes that P3s aren’t just concession deals like toll roads but also include transit-oriented development, where the private sector invests in neighborhoods served by transit.

Either way, he said, “Private corporations are ready to invest in U.S. infrastructure. These corporations are not waiting around. They see a market opportunity here – we’re kind of an emerging market to some of these places – but they’ll bypass the U.S. and go to Europe and other places that have the same amount of need.”

But Puentes acknowledges that P3s need to “balance the policy goals of a public agency with the private goals of profit-making, and those are not necessarily mutually exclusive.”

“We have to make sure this is not designed to only turn on that spigot of private money and let it all wash across the U.S.,” he said.

Energy intensity of different modes of transport. Source: ESLC

What do the president of FedEx, the former Director of National Intelligence, and 19 other business and military leaders have in common? They’re urging the U.S. to adopt less oil-intensive transportation habits. They say our national security depends on it.

Admiral Dennis Blair, former Director of National Intelligence and Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, says oil dependence is a threat to national security.

Retired military officers have joined forces with business tycoons to form the Energy Security Leadership Council. They’re looking for ways to reduce U.S. oil dependence and improve energy security. In 2008, the ESLC released a study detailing the need for the U.S. to shift from a petroleum-based to an electricity-based transportation sector.

Realizing that fuel efficiency and alternative fuels are just two legs of a three-legged stool, the ESLC released a report yesterday, “Transportation Policies for America’s Future,” calling for significant changes in transportation infrastructure [PDF].

America’s transportation network exists almost in a vacuum, the report says, with virtually no connection between how it is designed, how it is funded, and how American families and businesses use it every day. The result is an inefficient system in which system needs are out of alignment with investment, cost is out of alignment with usage, and congestion is threatening to undermine the potential gains associated with recent improvements in vehicle technology and fuel diversification.

Fedex CEO Frederick Smith agrees.

The ESLC call for policy shifts including:

• The establishment of national performance metrics, with reduction in oil consumption chief among them, for projects to receive federal funds.
• Create a new federal formula program, totaling 25 percent of annual federal transportation funding, to reduce congestion and encourage “economically justifiable alternatives to single-occupant travel in internal combustion vehicles” in metropolitan areas.
• Create a $5 billion-per-year competitive program with funds available to congested metropolitan areas seeking to implement dynamic tolling, improved traffic signals and payment systems, and public transportation solutions.
• Maintain and improve highway and passenger rail capacity outside of metropolitan areas and along major freight corridors.
• Remove federal restrictions on state tolling of new and existing roads.
• Shift to a VMT fee that “adequately accounts for fuel consumption externalities.”

These aren’t treehugging hippies advocating for these changes. These retired high-ranking military officers and corporate CEOs are convinced that the U.S. addiction to oil is the nation’s Achilles heel. “Hostile state actors, insurgents, and terrorists have made clear their intention to use oil as a strategic weapon against the United States,” they say. “America’s energy security can be fundamentally improved through major reductions in oil demand.”

“I’m here in the interest of being more neighborly,” Obama said by way of introduction. “Maybe we would have gotten off on a better foot if I had brought over a fruitcake when we first moved in.”

The Chamber supported Obama’s effort to keep the economy from “falling off the cliff” by passing the stimulus act. And it’s a big fan of Obama’s push for infrastructure investment, though as Bill Scher of Campaign for America’s Future notes, the Chamber’s support of infrastructure investment might have been more convincing if it hadn’t spent $31 million to get conservatives elected who would oppose essential spending.

But the Chamber was angry enough about the health care law and financial reform that it was ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The business association also fought with Obama last fall over charges that they were facilitating foreign campaign contributions.

Indeed, in his “State of American Business” speech last month, Chamber President Tom Donohue spent only 178 words – out of almost 4,500 – on infrastructure, not mentioning it until he was about three-quarters of the way done his speech. Still, noting that traffic congestion is “dragging down our economy,” the Chamber continues to advocate for greater investment. “The U.S. Chamber will work with anyone who shares our goals,” Donohue said in a statement following the State of the Union, “and we don’t care who gets the credit.”

In today’s appearance, which has been described in the media alternately as an “olive branch” and “the ultimate photo opportunity”, Obama got around to talking up the need to rebuild the nation’s transportation system a little earlier on. Starting with language borrowed from the State of the Union about “out-innovating, out-educating, and out-building our competitors”, Obama launched into his now-familiar push for investment:

We also have a responsibility as a nation to provide our people and our businesses with the fastest, most reliable way to move goods and information. The costs to business from the outdated and inadequate infrastructure we currently have are enormous. That’s why I want to put more people to work rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges. And that’s why I’ve proposed connecting 80 percent of the country to high-speed rail, and making it possible for companies to put high-speed internet coverage in reach of virtually all Americans.

You understand the importance of this. The fact is, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO don’t agree on a whole lot. Tom Donohue and Richard Trumka aren’t exactly Facebook friends. But they agree on the need to build a 21st century infrastructure. And I want to thank the Chamber for pushing Congress to make more infrastructure investments, and to do so in the most cost-effective way possible: with tax dollars that leverage private capital, and with projects determined not by politics, but by what’s best for our economy.

Speaking of Facebook friends – and pushing Congress – Donohue and Trumka will show up together to a Senate committee hearing next week to support a “strong transportation bill.” And tomorrow, Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood are joining forces tomorrow in Philadelphia’s famed 30th Street Station to continue to beat the drum for a 21st century transportation system.

Obama’s appearance this morning may not signal a decisive change in his relationship with the Chamber. Big business still thinks Obama’s administration is over-regulating them, and Obama is desperately trying to win them back (and, along with them, the centrists and conservatives that align themselves with corporate America.) But infrastructure is the issue around which all these forces can come together for a common goal. And for those who want to see a strong federal commitment to rebuilding the country’s antiquated transportation system, a good working relationship between the president and the Chamber is essential.

The President got pulses racing in the transportation world with stirring speeches about infrastructure investment this past Labor Day and Columbus Day. And his economic advisers recently put out a thoughtful report [PDF] making the case for investing now, while building costs are low and so much labor is available in construction. Now is the time for the President to make a strong pitch to Congress and more importantly to the American public in his State of the Union. This is what I would say if I were writing the speech President Obama will give on Tuesday.

**********************************************

We face a challenge in this country: Our transportation infrastructure policy is broken and it is going broke.

More than fifty years ago, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower worked with legislative leaders including Democratic Senator Al Gore, Sr. on a visionary transportation law: The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. This launched the construction of a world-class highway system that drove prosperity in the 20th century and now criss-crosses the nation. Thirty-five years later, Republican President George H. W. Bush worked with Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Representative Glenn Anderson to pass the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, reforming and updating Eisenhower’s vision to address America’s changing transportation needs.

Now is the time to honor that bipartisan legacy by building infrastructure that gives us a competitive edge in the 21st century.

But we’re not there yet – far from it.

The last transportation law expired more than a year ago. This is the bill that included the infamous “bridge to nowhere” earmark, and it is emblematic of government waste. We did a better job with investments in the recovery act, which had clear objectives, were merit-based and transparent to the public on the recovery.gov web site and elsewhere.  Now we need to expand these features to the whole transportation program, so it is defined by clear outcomes and driven by performance. It must be transparent so the American people can get under the hood and hold us accountable.

How do we get there?  We need to get back to basics.

First of all, no more earmarks. The public has lost faith in this program as the number of earmarks has spiraled out of control. Now, some have pointed out that they make up a small percentage of spending in the transportation bill, which may be true. But they are a symbol of all that is wrong with Washington – pork-barrel, wasteful spending.

Second, we need to lay the groundwork for a competitive 21st century transportation system. There is clear evidence that we’re on the road to disaster: $80 billion in lost productivity and wasted fuel due to traffic congestion, a ballooning trade deficit driven by gasoline and oil, and household transportation costs in excess of food for many families.

Instead, Americans want us to repair crumbling roads. Americans want high-speed rail links between growing metropolitan areas. And Americans want more transportation options, from bus rapid transit to new bicycle path networks in our cities. Delivering these results to the public will reduce the cost of living, improve quality of life, and lift the whole economy now and in the future.

We can do it if we slash the number of programs and simplify them to focus on achieving our shared national objectives. For example, one program should focus on bringing everything we’ve built – all of our roads, rails, and runways into top-notch condition. One should make traffic flow more smoothly and surely by linking all the ways of getting around. When a traveler walks out of a train station she should be able to drive, or take a bus, or take a cab, or even bike or walk conveniently. And commuters should be able to use the latest technology like apps on an iPhone with real-time information about traffic or train schedules.

Third, we need a program to invest real capital in new infrastructure. I know this a moment of belt-tightening on Capitol Hill, and there are good reasons to restrict spending. But these are crucial investments that will make America stronger and more competitive no matter how much some in Congress turn a blind eye to crumbling roads and falling bridges. We need to lay new asphalt and new steel rails, and we need to get started now.

And there is a way to leverage our limited resources, a way that has a proven track record around the world. The United States has helped finance infrastructure improvements around the world with the help of the private sector through special banks. The World Bank, which we helped create after World War II, has invested in projects around the world, and in the 1980s began mobilizing private sector money with innovative partnerships. Now it’s time to use that model right here at home. Doing this can multiply a federal investment several-fold.

This is why I propose the creation of an infrastructure bank. This bank will make grants and loans to jurisdictions across the country so they can work with companies to build the roads and rail we need to excel economically. The projects will be chosen carefully, based on results and outcomes. Will they boost economic growth? Will they increase energy independence? Will they save consumers money and increase quality of life? The projects that pass muster should move forward, and contractors should be held accountable for getting the job done.

The bank needs some seed capital to get started. I propose we do that by removing unneeded subsidies and tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. This industry is plenty profitable as is, and doesn’t need taxpayer help. That money should go to build a world-class 21st-century transportation system.

As I’ve said before, as we work to get the economy moving and employment up in the short run we need to keep our eye on the long haul. Building and maintaining a world-class web of roads, rail and runways will lift economic growth in a sustained way. I look forward to working with leaders of both parties to get the job done.

Photo from Barbara Boxer's flickr page

But she also said that the future of any transportation bill is in jeopardy now that the House has passed a new rule allowing money to languish in the highway trust fund instead of being spent on urgent infrastructure projects. The Republicans want to keep that money in the bank in the name of deficit reduction.

Boxer made it clear that if there’s no mandate to spend the money in the highway trust fund, “there is no highway trust fund.” She called the fund “sacrosanct” and made it clear that the new rule makes it far more difficult to craft a serious transportation bill, since financing will no longer be guaranteed. “If the Republicans plan to raid this fund,” she said, “then all of our plans to do more, to do it right, to do it better – even to do as much as we’ve done before – are thrown aside.”

She said the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be holding its first hearing on the transportation bill January 26. The hearing isn’t on the committee’s website yet, but it’s on our calendar now. She reaffirmed that she and Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on her committee, see eye to eye on infrastructure (though they don’t quite agree on climate science). “I’m hopeful we’ll be able to be a unified force,” she said.

She called the press conference to affirm that the EPW Committee, which she chairs, will continue working to protect the environment – specifically, against attacks on environmental regulation. She railed against Rep. Fred Upton’s recent statement, “We are not going to let this administration regulate what they’ve been unable to legislate,” referring to the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases as any other pollutant.

Boxer made it clear that not only does clean air legislation require such regulation, the Supreme Court has mandated it. Even the auto industry supports it: Boxer pointed out that the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers favors EPA regulation of carbon and raising fuel economy standards.

As for a climate bill, Boxer said one would surface when it has the votes. Even with a stronger Democratic majority in the Senate, they could never muster more than 54 votes for it – not enough to overcome a filibuster.

So does that mean Sen. Boxer is in favor of the new proposal to reform the filibuster rule so that not every piece of important legislation stalls without a 60-vote super-majority? She does indeed. Expect to see her listed as a co-sponsor soon.

Senator Boxer at the ceremony for LA's Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension. Image: Metro Transportation Library and Archive

“Your efforts are critical for a transportation bill that provides families and individuals with more efficient, affordable, safe, and environmentally sustainable transportation options that decrease our dependency on oil and create healthy communities where people can live, work, and play,” read a letter signed by 17 mayors, including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and Riverside Mayor Loveridge. Signers also included 48 supervisors and council members from cities across the state.

With Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) no longer taking the lead on transportation policy in the House, Senator Boxer’s actions in the next session will take on great meaning. Is she willing to provide the leadership needed to move transportation reform forward? With the climate bill dead, will she channel her energy toward reducing emissions through transportation, the nation’s second biggest source of carbon pollution?

Greenwire reported this month about Boxer’s declaration that a long-term transportation reauthorization would be aimed at “reducing congestion,” and that “cutting congestion is another way of cutting pollution.” She’s right, but does she intend to cut congestion in the short term by expanding highways or in the long term by improving transportation alternatives to take cars off the road?

The elected officials who wrote to the Senator this week clearly don’t think the road to the future is paved with asphalt.

“The nation’s transportation program has not been significantly updated since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s,” said Mayor Newsom. “With California and the nation facing new and different challenges in the 21st century, a modern approach is needed to ensure that transportation continues to fuel the economy of California and the nation. We need to put people back to work connecting our cities with high-speed rail, efficient and affordable public transportation systems, and building clean freight systems and safe places to walk and bicycle.”

Boxer, who was recently elected to her third term as California’s U.S. Senator, did not respond to a request for comment.

The incoming chair of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. John Mica (R-FL) has said he plans to introduce a new six-year transportation bill in the spring, though there is significant doubt about the likelihood of a six-year bill given the inadequacy of current sources of financing. Earlier this month, the House passed a temporary extension that will expire next October.

With incoming Transportation Chair John Mica refusing a gas tax increase, reformers can still make progress in the next two years. Image: Orlando Sentinel

The House recently approved a sixth extension of the current transportation law, this one lasting for nine months. Incoming Chair John Mica (R-FL) says he wants to work on a new six-year reauthorization, but there’s no reason to believe it’ll proceed smoothly without a robust financing mechanism in place. For now, lawmakers can’t agree on a way to stabilize the highway trust fund and adequately finance transportation.

If a long-term reauthorization proves impossible, Puentes argues for a deficit-neutral, short-term reauthorization rather than continue with endless extensions. He calls it SAFETEA-TWO.

Why a two-year bill? For one thing, it’s hard for construction projects to move forward with certainty under these short-term, temporary extensions. Contractors and states are timid about undertaking ambitious projects when the future of federal funding isn’t firm.

Another reason boils down to timing. Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) introduced his reauthorization bill to great fanfare in June 2009, but there was no agreement on a funding mechanism, as lawmakers refused to get behind a gas tax increase. They haven’t made any progress on that yet. Puentes hopes that in two years, with the 2012 presidential campaign season behind us and, one hopes, a stronger economy, a gas tax increase might gain traction.

So what can transportation advocates do in the next two years? And what can a SAFETEA-TWO accomplish? Here’s what Puentes recommends:

• Model a new evaluation system for project proposals on TIGER, basing awards on merit and performance metrics. Add more transparency and specificity to the process. Make TIGER and the High Speed Rail program permanent.
• Start transitioning from the gas tax to a more direct user fee system, like a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee. Support “aggressive research” and development, especially to address concerns about privacy and administering a mileage fee. These issues will take time to iron out, and the next two years are a perfect time to do that work.
• Invest in a strategic framework for multimodal freight movement.
• Establish a national policy for road pricing, including “standard tolling, variable pricing, high occupancy toll lanes, cordon and area-wide schemes.” Remove “archaic” restrictions on interstate tolling and utilitze state-of-the-art toll collection technologies.
• “Help those that help themselves.” Offer federal incentives to encourage local self-financing, as when voters approve tax increases to pay for transit improvements.

• Strengthen coordination among financing tools like TIFIA and private activity bonds to ease the process for applicants and embrace more complex and ambitious projects. A unified infrastructure financing system could also set the stage for the transition to a National Infrastructure Bank.
• Expand the use of Public-Private Partnerships with a governmental office designed, not to make decisions about PPP projects, but to provide quality control and technical advice.
• Work on reducing construction delays by instituting rewards for on-time project delivery and forgoing unnecessary environmental reviews (but keeping the necessary ones).
• Allow greater use of federal funds for rail maintenance to address concerns like those expressed by anti-rail politicians in Ohio and Wisconsin about state financial burdens.
• Cut some “legacy” programs, like the half-billion-dollar Appalachian Development Highway System Program, that are redundant with other federal agencies.

Puentes says these interim reforms could pave the way for an ambitious, six-year reauthorization when the political and economic stars are in better alignment than they are now. It’s a roadmap for action at a time when many reformers are throwing up their hands in despair, wondering what can possibly be achieved in the current climate.

Spending on transportation operations, like this bus driver's salary, create the most jobs, according to a new report. Photo: Vagabond Shutterbug via Flickr.

Between calls for renewed stimulus on the one hand and for deficit reduction on the other, Washington, D.C. is stuck. A new report by the Transportation Equity Network, however, shows one easy way to put people back to work without increasing federal spending: shifting our transportation investment to transit.

According to the report, written by University of Missouri-St. Louis researchers Todd Swanstrom, Will Winter, and Laura Wiedlocher, every dollar spent on funding transit creates more jobs than spending on roads. Specifically, each billion dollars spent on transit creates 36,108 jobs while the same figure can only buy 30,319 road jobs. That means that by reassigning some federal spending from roads to transit, Congress could boost employment without adding a cent to the deficit.

The multiplier for highway spending was taken from a model contracted by the Federal Highway Administration and adjusted downward by the authors to exclude the cost of land acquisition, while the transit formulas were taken from a report by the American Public Transit Association.

The report also shows how the feds could create even more jobs by making sure those transit dollars go to operating budgets rather than capital projects. A billion dollars in transit capital projects creates 23,788 jobs, the authors say, less than road funding. But spending a billion dollars on operations generates 41,140 jobs.

And operating budgets are in desperate need of stimulus. Transit systems across the country have been raising fares, cutting service, and shedding jobs since the onset of the recession, and the crisis far from over. In Pittsburgh, for instance, the Port Authority is currently moving ahead with plans cut bus service by 35 percent and raise fares.

So what kind of impact could shifting transportation investment have on our struggling economy? The researchers pored through the transportation plans of 20 metro regions and figured out how much each was spending on roads and transit. Using those numbers, they show that by shifting 50 percent of each region’s highway spending to transit, you could create 180,150 more jobs. And that doesn’t even include enormous regions like Dallas, Houston, or Miami; across the country, the number of new jobs would be even higher than 180,000.

Congressmen Oberstar and Blumenauer, here speaking together at the 2007 Bike Summit, were on opposite sides of a dispute about increased funding for livability programs yesterday. Photo: Bike Portland

First, a refresher on the difference between authorizations and appropriations. Roughly speaking, authorizations set policy while appropriations spend money based on those policies. Congress passes a transportation appropriations bill, like the House did yesterday, every year, while the transportation authorization is renewed less frequently. The most recent authorization, SAFETEA-LU, passed in 2005 and was set to expire in 2009. It has been temporarily extended since then while Congress dithers over a new bill. 

According to The Hill, the House's $67.4 billion appropriations bill reduces spending overall by $500 million from last year, and is $1.3 billion less than what the Obama administration requested. Because major priorities are mainly set in the federal transportation bill, the appropriations bill rarely includes large shifts in policy.

On the biggest ticket transportation items, spending increased in this appropriation. The $45.2 billion set for highways is $4.1 billion more than last year's bill provided for, according to The Hill, and $3.9 billion more than the administration asked for. Similarly the $11.3 billion in transit spending would be $500 million more than last year and $575 million more than requested.

One squabble that broke out pitted some of Congress's most prominent proponents of sustainable transportation against each other and ended with $200 million less for livability initiatives -- money that would have been used to help states coordinate transportation, land use, and conservation policy. That funding was proposed by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Portland Congressman Earl Blumenauer. Fighting fiercely against it were Congressmen Peter DeFazio and James Oberstar. As chronicled by the League of American Bicyclists' Andy Clarke, this wasn't a fight about substance -- all four have been champions for livability, overall -- but about process and turf.

Oberstar chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, while DeFazio chairs its Highways and Transit Subcommittee. That makes them authorizers, in charge of writing policy. While the line between authorizing and appropriating can be fuzzy, DeFazio and Oberstar don't want federal transportation policy to be written through the appropriations process, so they were willing to kill the livability funding, even if they may have supported it on the merits, in order to prevent a precedent from being set.

DeFazio's amendment to strip the $200 million from the appropriations bill passed, suggesting that even relatively inexpensive changes to federal transportation policy will have to wait for the next reauthorization bill.

Other attempts to change established policy by slashing funding were denied. Congressman Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican, unsuccessfully tried to forbid any funding at all to go to bike paths, according to Clarke. An amendment from GOP rep Michelle Bachmann to eliminate Amtrak also went nowhere.

Four junior Democrats, Gary Peters, Jim Himes, Peter Welch, and John Adler, prepared an amendment to cut the bill by over $1 billion -- including a chunk of funding for high-speed rail -- but ultimately did not put it forward after a sustained push by the House leadership made its passage unlikely, according to Politico. A similar set of spending cuts proposed by Iowa Republican Tom Latham failed by 30 votes.

The consequences of our transportation policy. (Photo: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency via Flickr)

Last week, President Obama delivered his first speech from the Oval Office on the single greatest challenge our nation faces: how we supply and consume energy.

The searing images we’re seeing from the Gulf Coast -- of the families who lost loved ones, of people out of work and of oil-coated birds and dolphins -- are daily reminders of what’s at stake when we drill, baby, drill.

The truth is that we are drilling 150 miles offshore and one mile below the earth’s surface because we have run out of accessible oil. Most shocking is how small a difference this oil makes to our energy needs. The 35-60,000 barrels spewing daily from the Gulf floor would be enough to power our nation’s cars for just four minutes.

Whether from the Gulf of Mexico or Persian Gulf, we cannot meet our nation’s energy needs by drilling. We are at a precipice, and I stand firmly with President Obama when it comes to Congress passing legislation that arms the nation with clean energy.

But frankly, we need to do more on these issues, especially by addressing transportation and how we build in our communities.

The transportation sector accounts for almost three-quarters of U.S. oil consumption and one-third of our carbon emissions. If we really want to break our dependence on oil and improve our global competitiveness, we must focus on the way people commute and move goods.

Being truly aggressive about where and how we build can save even more money and energy -- with the potential to cut carbon pollution 12-16 percent by 2030 and save more than a million barrels of oil a day.

This is not the first thing that comes to mind for most people, but to ensure our energy security, we need a comprehensive approach. I hope this becomes part of the future message and, more importantly, a key focus of Congressional action.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, second from left, has joined transit workers' unions in their Save Our Ride campaign. (Photo: Streetsblog NYC)

The president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department, Ed Wytkind, also pushed for passage of the Senate bill in a National Journal guest blog post this morning. The Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union, both AFL-CIO members, have aligned with Rev. Jesse Jackson, environmental groups, and civil-rights advocates for a campaign dubbed Save Our Ride that seeks to stave off sweeping transit cuts in major cities.

The unions have several hurdles to clear before the transit funding becomes available, however. The Senate legislation contains only authorizing language, meaning that lawmakers must quickly follow with "appropriating" language that technically disburses the operating money.

That two-step process would have been accomplished quickly by attaching the transit aid to a larger bill that is considered "must-pass" by Congress, such as the upcoming supplemental funding bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Republican senators vowed early on to oppose any attempt to add unrelated spending to that measure, and the Senate passed its version sans transit aid before adjourning for the Memorial Day recess.

That leaves room for the AFL-CIO to generate momentum for another vehicle to carry the transit funding -- but given the resistance among both House and Senate Democrats to any new spending not offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget, the union may face an uphill battle this summer.

LaHood, at far right, during a tabletop speech at March's National Bike Summit. (Photo: Jonathan Maus)

In addition to hailing the health benefits of bike-ped -- LaHood said he has used the local Rock Island trail near his Peoria hometown "hundreds of times" -- he also thanked the assembled advocates for serving as a counterweight to the criticism directed his way by the trucking industry after a March policy statement that endorsed putting cyclists and pedestrians on equal footing with drivers.

"We need to be promoting biking," the Cabinet member said, but that effort "does not take away from other forms of transportation."

The letter presented to LaHood, accompanied by a signed poster that the Washington Area Bicyclist Association compiled during last week's Bike to Work Day events, praised the March policy statement on bike-ped but acknowledged its non-binding nature.

"We have a lot of work to do," wrote the letter's signatory groups, which included America Bikes, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, Transportation for America, and the National Complete Streets Coalition. The advocates continued:

We should start by integrating policies that increase safety and accessibility for pedestrians and bicyclists, including Complete Streets and Safe Routes to School, into federal law so that new projects receiving DOT funds accommodate all users of the road. We should also advocate funding for Active Transportation networks in our cities, towns and metropolitan areas. We look forward to working with you on a new surface transportation law that broadens transportation choices for all Americans ... and introduces new benchmarks for our federal dollars, including those that will support biking and walking as equal modes of transportation.