St. Louis' Arch grounds will get better pedestrian connectivity across I-70, thanks to a $20 million TIGER grant. Image: NextSTL

If you live in Stamford, Connecticut and your walk to the train station gets safer next year, you can thank USDOT’s TIGER grant program. Or when your hometown of American Falls, Idaho suddenly gets complete streets downtown, accommodating people on foot, on bikes, on buses, in cars, and in wheelchairs, encouraging local shopping. Or when you realize that traffic congestion between Olympia and Tacoma, Washington has eased, not by adding lanes but by installing intelligent technology to manage traffic and encourage ridesharing.

All 46 of the TIGER III award grantees have been announced now, and there are sure to be more communities disappointed than excited, given that there were 828 applications totaling $14.1 billion and USDOT had only $511 million to give. The money went to 33 states and Puerto Rico. USDOT was careful to include many rural projects, though those tend to be the smallest grant awards. Twenty of the 46 projects are in rural areas, but they only amount to about 30 percent of the total outlay. (Check out Transportation for America’s fantastic interactive map of grantees from all three rounds of TIGER.)

All in all, 48 percent of the projects fund roadwork, with about a quarter of those funds paying for complete streets treatments like the one in American Falls. Another 29 percent goes to transit – a far better shake for transit than generally comes of the normal Congressional appropriations process. Twelve percent went to ports, 10 percent for freight rail, and two percent for passenger rail.

LaHood praised the job creation potential of the funds, saying in a statement, “When President Obama said, ‘We can’t wait,’ to take action to put people back to work, DOT took that to heart. And, with the announcement of our third round of TIGER funding, we’re making it clear: we didn’t wait.”

Indeed, he said work is currently underway on 33 planning projects and 58 capital projects from the first two rounds of TIGER funding.

The biggest four projects this time around, each receiving $20 million, were the Chicago Blue Line renewal and city bike-share, HOT lanes for a heavily congested stretch of I-95 in Northern Virginia, improved and safer flow of vehicular and pedestrian traffic in St. Louis, and support for a TIFIA loan to extend express lanes on SR-91 in Southern California. Most of these projects have total costs that make the $20 million contribution look like a drop in the bucket – the SR-91 project alone will cost $1.3 billion. TIGER takes a bigger bite out of the Chicago project, whose total cost is significantly lower than the others at $64.6 million.

LaHood praised his department for getting the announcement out months ahead of schedule, but it stands to reason: The initial February deadline had become an end-of-year mandate, and LaHood was being called a Grinch for ruining department employees’ holiday breaks by making them work on TIGER applications during break. Apparently they hustled to get them done in time to relax with their families a little over the holiday.

The full list of projects, with descriptions, is available on the U.S. DOT website [PDF].

Photo: The North Iowa Journal

The traffic crash and fatality rates in this country are indeed at historic lows, especially given the staggering amount of driving Americans do on a yearly basis. In 2005, the most recent year to have shown an increase in highway fatalities, there were 14.7 traffic deaths for every 100,000 U.S. residents. In 2010, that number had fallen to 10.7 deaths, a difference of approximately 10,000 fewer fatalities annually. (USDOT measures the death rate not by population but by vehicle miles traveled, also showing a dramatic improvement, from 1.5 deaths per million VMT to 1.1 over the same period. Interestingly, while total VMT rose in 2010, per-capita driving declined.)

The news was grimmer for people outside of a car than for drivers and passengers. Improved motor vehicle safety features were likely a factor in the lower fatality rate, according to the Boston Herald, but those same features mean little to non-occupants. After several progressively safer years, 2010 saw a 4.2 percent increase in pedestrian deaths—to 4,280, a difference of 171 human lives—and a whopping increase of about 11,000 nonfatal injuries. Bicycle deaths decreased 1.6 percent, but bike injury rates didn’t change at all. Clearly, safety gains for motorists have not extended to more vulnerable road users.

Furthermore, while it is certainly good news that traffic is claiming thousands fewer lives each year, 32,885 is a staggering number. It is roughly equivalent to 70 full jumbo jets crashing and leaving no survivors, or equal to the population of Juneau, AK or Dover, DE. There is enormous room for improvement: The fatality rate in the U.S. still pales beside leading countries like Japan (3.85 traffic deaths per 100,000) and Germany (4.5), which also happen to have much lower rates of driving than the U.S.

Arrows indicate direction of change since previous year. Source: BTS, NHTSA

In an effort to further reduce the number of roadway deaths and injuries, National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator David Strickland announced at yesterday’s press conference that his agency was introducing several new measures to track distracted driving. NHTSA introduced a new metric, to be included in future highway fatality reports, called “distraction-affected crashes.” This figure differs slightly from the current “distraction-related” category — for example, “cell phone present in vehicle” will no longer count under the new metric, while “dialing a cell phone” will.

NHTSA will also initiate a two-year naturalistic study of driver behavior to clarify the relationship between distracted driving and road injuries, fitting 2,000 cars with cameras and other equipment. Ideally, the results of that study will be able to draw a straight line between driver behavior and non-occupant injuries.

The NHTSA could take many more steps to better understand what is causing the decline in traffic deaths and determine how to make the U.S. a global leader in street safety. Fewer Americans are dying on the roads than 20 or even 10 years ago, and that could be a reflection of any number of factors: improvements in emergency care, car safety features, road design, driver behavior, or changes in the amount Americans drive. We can’t allow ourselves to become complacent in the face of 32,885 deaths that might have been prevented.

LaHood is spending his birthday defending the administration's high-speed rail plan. Photo: Christian Science Monitor

It’s Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s birthday, and he’s spending it testifying before the House Transportation Committee. The hearing is on “Mistakes & Lessons Learned” from the high-speed rail program, but — no surprise here — LaHood and House Republicans have differing ideas about what “mistakes” have been made.

Here are some highlights.

Chair John Mica said he’s a “strong, committed advocate to high-speed rail service in the United States” but he’s been “very disappointed” in the progress so far. “We have hit an impasse,” he said.

Mica pointed to the ballooning cost estimates for HSR in California and reiterated his long-held position that it’s the wrong place to build high-speed rail. LaHood agreed that “this is an expensive project, but all of the money is going to American workers to build American infrastructure.” Mica stood firm that the Northeast Corridor, not California, is the place to build.

“We’re taking our cues from you,” LaHood said. “We’re investing in the Northeast Corridor.” Mica said they’re still waiting for the money to be awarded.

Rep. Bill Shuster, who chairs the rail subcommittee, said the president’s vision to bring high-speed rail access to 80 percent of the American people isn’t realistic. He said there’s no money for it — and no need. “I don’t hear people all around the country clamoring for high-speed rail,” he said.

When LaHood said that the HSR vision isn’t “Ray LaHood’s vision” — it comes from the states themselves — Shuster said yes, but his daughter wants a luxury SUV and he don’t have the money for it, so she’s not getting it. “I’m glad you didn’t think that about the Keystone Line,” LaHood shot back. He said Shuster asked for the money for that line and the DOT gave it. “Right,” Shuster said, I believe in rail investment “where it makes sense.” But, Shuster noted, he didn’t ask for help funding rail improvements between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh – and that line goes right through his district. But it’s not a strategic investment priority for the country.

Shuster suggested actually taking money from the California project and putting it toward the NEC — not likely to be a popular suggestion, when federal funding is already just $3.6 billion of California’s $98.5 billion total bill.

Mica mentioned that Congress has cut off funds to HSR for the coming fiscal year, and says the body is “certainly not going to give Amtrak $117 billion [for its plan to bring faster trains to the NEC] based on its current record, lack of plan, and lack of progress.”

LaHood made his usual speech about the incredible demand for high-speed rail funds: Yes, three governors have returned the money — but when Florida’s Rick Scott did so, 24 states (and DC and Amtrak) submitted requests for the money — “a testament to American enthusiasm for high-speed rail.”

LaHood also said that it was Republicans who initially laid out the first few HSR corridors and he lamented the end of bipartisan cooperation on transportation, and high-speed rail in particular.

He and Mica did battle over how fast these “fast” trains will go. Mica says “pseudo-high-speed rail projects” give HSR “a bad name” in the United States because “they will not operate at high speeds,” they’re just a “mirage.” Mica said the Chicago to St. Louis line will only go an average of 71 mph, a “snail-speed” train from Chicago to Detroit will just go an average of 64 mph, and the Portland-to-Vancouver line will go 65 mph. LaHood said those are current speeds, before the investment and the improvement. Mica said no, those numbers came from your department as the goal speeds for after the improvements. (LaHood’s estimates of 110 mph for Chicago to St. Louis and 200 mph for California are consistent with what’s been reported up until now.)

The deadline to apply for TIGER III grants passed late last month, but not before 828 applications were received from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and US territories. Applications for this $527 million program totaled $14.1 billion, guaranteeing the selection process will be fiercely competitive.

The Atlanta streetcar was funded in an earlier round of TIGER. This photo shows an artist's rendering of the project.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the response demonstrates just how urgent the need is for investment in the nation’s transportation systems.

“The tremendous demand for these grants clearly shows that communities across the country can’t wait any longer for crucial upgrades to the roads, bridges, rail lines, and bus routes they rely on every day,” he said in his blog, The Fast Lane.

USDOT plans to award the grants before the end of the year, thanks to a directive from the President to expedite the process, according to LaHood. (That move prompted the Washington Post to call LaHood a grinch for keeping his staff in the office over the winter holidays.)

TIGER, which stands for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, represents an important innovation for US DOT, in that grants are awarded based on project merit rather than political and geographic considerations. Extra consideration is given to applications that have the potential to have a significant impact on the nation or the region where the grant is awarded. This third round of grants, however, relaxed this theme a little to include a geographic diversity component in the awards process.

USDOT has awarded a total of $2.1 billion in grants under TIGER I and II. TIGER funding is helping build a streetcar in downtown Atlanta. TIGER also provided $23 million to help realize the Philadelphia Area’s Bike and Pedestrian Network, which calls for 128 miles of facilities across an six-county region. Program funds have also advanced Los Angeles’ innovative 30/10 program, which will speed construction of the Crenshaw/LAX light rail line.

Last year, when TIGER II was overwhelmed with 32 times more requests than available funds, David Burwell, a co-founder of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, told Streetsblog, “It shows the enormous interest states have in discretionary money… With formula money, states will tell you, ‘That’s our money; we don’t have to do anything for formula money.’ Offer discretionary money and they’ll do backflips.”

Among the “backflips” the states will do: real reform work. If encouraged to innovate by programs like TIGER that are looking for effective, visionary proposals, Burwell said, states will get out of the rut of just funding pothole repair and start really imagining ways to revolutionize their transportation systems.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was in Detroit Monday to announce almost $1 billion in transit grants to local agencies across the country. Photo: USDOT

On Monday, FTA awarded almost $1 billion to local transit agencies to purchase buses, construct shelters and plan for the future [PDF].

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the grants in Detroit Monday alongside Mayor Dave Bing and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

Transit agencies throughout the state of Michigan were awarded $46 million, including $2 million for Detroit to study expanding its planned Woodward Avenue light rail line into the suburbs past Eight Mile Road.

The city of Detroit’s Department of Transportation was also awarded $6 million to purchase new buses. Meanwhile, Detroit’s suburban bus system, SMART, received $5 million to update its fleet.

“This is a significant investment in Michigan’s future,” said Snyder. “A modern transportation system is key to a stronger economy and enhanced quality of life in our state.”

Elsewhere around the country, Sound Transit in Seattle will receive $5.4 million to buy hybrid buses, and the South Florida Regional Transit Agency will receive $4.5 million to replace its shuttle buses with vehicles that run on alternative fuel. These vehicles link public transportation centers with the airport, hospitals and universities in the Miami-Dade area, according to Environmental News Service.

In one of the smaller grants, Bloomington, Indiana received almost $30,000 to purchase lockers for cyclists at a new downtown transfer station.

Announcing the grants on his blog, LaHood used the occasion to press for the passage of President Obama’s American Jobs Act. The need is great, he said, noting that while a total of 300 local agencies received grants in this round of funding, more than 500 additional applicants were turned away.

“Our bus lines, railways and roadways require maintenance and improvements to keep America moving safely and efficiently,” LaHood said. “The American Jobs Act will hire American workers to upgrade 150,000 miles of road, replace 4,000 miles of track, and restore 150 miles of runways to reduce travel time and delays and improve safety nationwide.“

“At the same time, thousands of unemployed Americans are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work, but Congress continues to play a partisan game at their expense. The time is now. The opportunity is now. Let’s pass this bill and put Americans to work.”

Earl Blumenauer takes the podium at Rail~Volution, while moderator Grace Crunican of BART, APTA President Bill Millar, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (not pictured) stand by. Photo by Clarence Eckerson, Jr.

“We should make some adjustments to a gas tax that hasn’t increased since 1993,” Blumenauer said. “Half the people think the gas tax goes up every year.”

He said he’d like to see it indexed to inflation:

In an ideal world, I would not raise the gas tax this year or next year. Come out of this recession, but put in place increases that are going to occur over the next 10 years; have that revenue stream. I would borrow against the revenue stream to take advantage of record low interest rates and a bidding climate like we’ve never seen, fund the president’s infrastructure bank to help move some of these forward, and work toward replacing the gas tax.

He reminded the audience that his state was the first to institute a gas tax, and now Oregon is working to get rid of it and replace it with a vehicle miles traveled fee.

Bill Millar, the outgoing president of the American Public Transit Association (“on Halloween, I turn into a pumpkin!”), said that before switching to a VMT fee, Congress needs to eliminate the federal guarantee, called “equity bonus,” that states will get back at least a certain percentage of what they pay in gas tax receipts. (The GAO recently found that every state actually gets back more than it puts in, thanks to infusions from the general fund, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of states from complaining that they don’t get their fair share.)

“States that encourage more travel get more money back [under the equity bonus system],” Millar said, “so we’ve got to break that cycle too, to make sure instead it’s an inverse relationship and states that give people more choice, more ways to travel, get more federal aid, not less federal aid.”

Millar thinks the answer is simply to raise the gas tax. And he doesn’t agree that it needs to wait. After all, the average price of gas in America went up by seven cents this week, he noted. But did anybody notice? “If you told Americans that, they wouldn’t like it, but hey, it’s gas, what can you do?” he said.

Either way, the U.S. has got to do something to avoid running up the deficit. Congress can continue to run up an infrastructure deficit, Blumenauer said, which will cost far more in the long run. Or the country can keep spending even the meager amount it does now on transportation maintenance and the Highway Trust Fund will run dry, requiring another general fund transfer, which adds to the deficit.

Why can’t Congress move forward on any path out of the current fix? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been pretty open with his frustration lately. “The last election elected about 70+ new members of the House,” he said at Rail~Volution. “About 30 or 40 of those people came here to do nothing. And that’s what they’ve done.”

Blumenauer noted that his first public event in Congress was a bipartisan press conference with LaHood, then a representative from Illinois. They had called for civility in Washington.

“In the days when I served with Earl and others, there was a good mix of policy and politics,” LaHood said. “Unfortunately, today, the policy part has dropped off and it’s all politics. It’s all about the next election.”

He fumbled his call to action, though. “Everyone in this room has a member of Congress; everyone has two senators,” he said – momentarily forgetting, I guess, that he was talking to hundreds of people in Washington, DC, where 600,000 residents have neither. Just the day before, Mayor Vincent Gray had buttered up the Rail~Volution audience by talking about the Dulles rail extension and streetcars, and ended by asking the audience to push for democracy for DC so that residents there can be represented like everyone else as Congress debates the issues of the day.

For example, the jobs bill: That’s what LaHood wanted everyone to call up their members of Congress about. Or passing a “five-year” [sic] transportation bill.

Bill Millar reminded the audience that transit activism isn’t just about those big federal-level initiatives that get caught in big federal-level partisan gridlock. Eight cities and towns will vote on transit-related ballot initiatives in November. Millar noted that on the very same day last November when the American people voted in a new class of self-styled fiscal hawks, they also voted nearly three-to-one in favor of pro-transit measures – even when they involved taxation.

“You can’t rest when you get home!” Millar exhorted Rail~Volution attendees.

They gave him a standing ovation.

Rep. John Mica won't be specific about where additional transportation funding could come from. Photo: 13 News

Mica told an audience at a Washington Post-sponsored forum on transportation that passing yet another extension of the surface transportation reauthorization persuaded leadership that there would not be consensus on a long-term bill until the spending levels were raised. “There wont be a gas tax increase,” Mica said, “but our leadership has asked us to look for other sources of revenue, and we’re on that mission now.”

“Speaker Boehner has really opened the door to us to look for any responsible means” to fund the bill, Mica said, adding that a gas tax increase is still off the table. “There’s also the possibility of doing away with it; adopting something else.” He wouldn’t specify what the replacement fee could be.

Nor would he say what he thinks of a Republican proposal to fund the bill with revenues from new oil drilling except to say, “We’re looking at it. We have some scoring issues. And then we have to make sure we have the votes.”

Mica said he was confident that a long-term bill would pass in March. “Don’t let anybody talk about a two-year transportation bill; that’s criminal,” he said. His counterpart in the Senate, Barbara Boxer, has proposed a two-year bill, but could be willing to go along with a longer-term bill if funding levels were raised.

Mica also reiterated his support for state infrastructure banks, saying he prefers them to a national bank. He said the way Washington works is: “the biggest gorillas get the most bananas.” Instead of having big guys compete for big loans from a big national bank, he said, “the best way to prioritize projects is to have them evolve from local level, get local and state participation, and then assist them.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also addressed the Washington Post gathering. He said he was confident that, despite current gridlock, there was enough pressure on Congress to create jobs that they’ll pass some form of transportation bill this year.

Still, he hinted that Republicans in Congress might be trying to sabotage Obama’s presidency at the expense of the unemployed. He said Congress was polling lower than it ever has among the public “because they haven’t done anything.”

“Maybe that’s deliberate,” LaHood said. “I hope it’s not.”

He said the most recent class in Congress came in, not with a mission to find solutions, but determined to obstruct movement.

Infrastructure bills used to be bipartisan and easy to pass, LaHood said, but “some people don’t want Obama to be successful.” The result? Aside from 9.1 percent official unemployment, “infrastructure is in terrible shape,” he said. “America is one big pothole right now.”

In comments to reporters after his remarks, LaHood said he believed that, despite recent attacks, transportation enhancements (the major way the federal government funds bicycle and pedestrian facilities) would remain.

“These enhancements have always been a part of the transportation program, and I anticipate that they will be in the future,” he said. As for assertions by Sens. Rand Paul and Tom Coburn that bike paths aren’t “real” transportation, he said, “That’s why we have debates in Congress,” but repeated, “I feel pretty confident that these programs will continue.”

LaHood let it slip yesterday that he was planning to leave after Obama’s first term, whether or not the president is re-elected. “My wife has plans for me to do something more monetarily pleasing to her,” he said in an attempt to answer what he might do next.

While some bicycling advocates might hope the president would nominate someone of similarly bike-friendly proclivities, LaHood made it clear that wasn’t why he was nominated. “I wouldn’t have this job if I wasn’t a Republican,” he said. “If I was anything else, I wouldn’t be here today.”

He did say he agreed with the president on transportation, including the importance of getting high-speed rail moving. He said the $10 billion the administration has invested in high-speed rail was “10 billion times more than has ever been invested before” and would make the U.S. the envy of the world again, as Asia and Europe’s rail systems are now.

He countered skepticism about the slow speed and reticence in Congress to fund the program by saying that when he was growing up in Peoria, and the interstate system was being built, “I remember seeing stretches of cement that went nowhere.” But what started as little, disconnected segments eventually came together into one nationwide network.

LaHood also put in a plug for the TIGER program, calling it was a good way to connect projects with the federal government without having to go through governors and that had very little red tape for a federal program. He also highlighted the importance of keeping roads, bridges and transit systems in a state of good repair.

LaHood, flanked by NYC Transpo Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, lauds the NACTO bike guide. Photo: Darren Flusche, League of American Bicyclists

If Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has anything to say about it, every transportation planner in the country should have a shiny new engineering guide on his or her bookshelf.

It’s been six months since the National Association of City Transportation Officials released the Urban Bikeways Design Guide in an online format. Yesterday, LaHood was among the first to hold the print edition in his very-excited hands, providing a ringing endorsement for its widespread adoption.

It would have been a bittersweet moment, coming only hours after LaHood told reporters that he would be a one-term transportation secretary – if the attendees had heard the news by then, which most of them hadn’t.

Before the most bike-friendly transportation secretary in U.S. history took the podium, another groundbreaking policymaker — Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City Transportation Commissioner — set the stage. Sadik-Khan is more than the architect of NYC’s next-gen bike infrastructure; she’s also the president of NACTO. So, she proudly raised a copy and called the guide a compendium of “everything you need to know to bring world-class bikeways to city streets.”

With American cities constantly struggling to implement cycling facilities that have long been the norm in Europe, NACTO created the guide to speed adoption of bicycling infrastructure by speaking directly to planners and engineers in their specialized technical lingo. By compiling a manual written by American city officials, for American city officials, Sadik-Khan said, the guide will give cash-strapped municipalities the certainty they need to view cycling facilities as proven traffic applications, not costly experiments. By putting all the engineering specs on paper, she added, it will help cities move beyond the rigid design standards that have limited bike infrastructure in the past.

Beyond the ease of reference, the guide breaks new ground by detailing bicycle infrastructure that has yet to be officially embraced by the old guard of transportation engineering institutions. The current versions of the AASHTO Guide to Bikeway Facilities or the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) directly reference only five of the 21 treatments outlined in the NACTO guide, according to the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. Looking for design guidance on bike boxes? Best practices for protected bike lanes? Thanks to NACTO, now there’s a reference guide for that.

What will that sleek techno-manual mean for the average cyclist? A blossoming of bike infrastructure that will help mainstream bicycling, make streets safer for all users, and finally bring American transportation into the 21st century, said Sadik-Khan. “This is a design guide for streets that work today and in 2050; streets that aren’t designed for 1950,” she said.

Secretary LaHood seconded that emotion. The first words out of his mouth were a direct recommendation that every community use the design guide as a means to promote more and safer cycling. “This is an extraordinary piece of work that’s long overdue,” the secretary said.

True to his reputation, LaHood touted the importance of “providing cycling opportunities that are safe, convenient and available.” The new guide, he said, should serve as a resource in that effort.

“This is a big deal,” he said of the proliferation of urban bicycling. “And this guide is a big deal.”

LaHood stood behind NYC Transpo Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at a bicycling event today in DC. Photo: Darren Flusche, League of American Bicyclists

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the LA Times today that he’s a one-term secretary. Don’t expect him to serve during President Obama’s second term, if there is one, or to run for any other public office in the future.

Todd Zwillich of Transportation Nation suggests that partisan gridlock may be to blame. “A lot has changed in this town since I arrived more than 35 years ago,” LaHood told an audience at the National Press Club today, “but nothing changed more than the evolution of a culture in which elected officials are rewarded for intransigence… For too many, compromise has become a dirty word — for many, compromise isn’t even in their dictionary.”

As we mentioned yesterday, LaHood’s support for bicycling has continued to blossom as his tenure as secretary has gone on. From the tabletop speech to his declaration of “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized” to last weekend’s affirmation of rail-trails as good health care policy, LaHood has been the darling of the biking community. He’s also been a high-profile advocate for the TIGER program and high-speed rail, as well as countless active transportation initiatives like Walk to School Day, and bike sharing.

In his comments to the LA Times, LaHood specifically denied that he would run for Illinois governor and said he plans to head back to the private sector.

LaHood's tabletop speech to cyclists, March 2010. Photo: J. Maus / Bike Portland

Now LaHood says that biking and walking is not only good transportation policy; it’s good health care policy.

Speaking at the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s 25th anniversary reception last weekend, LaHood said the rail-trail program “has done more for health care than anything we’ve ever done in America. Rail-trails have contributed so much to people’s good health over the last 25 years — also preventing heart disease, and providing the kinds of opportunities people have looked for, for a long, long time.”

City health departments are getting on board with active transportation, with many health officials promoting biking and walking as a path to good health. Perhaps the innovative partnership between USDOT, EPA, and HUD should make room for Health and Human Services too?

We’ll bring you more of the LaHood-bicycle-lovefest tomorrow, when the secretary publicly endorses the NACTO bike guide, the most bicycle-friendly street-planning guide out there for engineers.

In October, TIGER II granted $47.6 million to Atlanta for a modern streetcar system. Here, Transportation Secretary LaHood presents the check to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and several area members of Congress. Photo: The White House

It’s TIGER III time. The first round was $1.5 billion. The second round was $600 million. And now, get ready for round three. After surviving countless threats by budget-cutting Republicans in Congress, TIGER is back, granting $527 million for innovative transportation projects.

The “Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery” program lets cities, states and regions compete to show that their project will have a significant impact on the nation

“Through the TIGER program, we can build transportation projects that are critical to America’s economic success and help complete those that might not move forward without this infusion of funding,” said Secretary LaHood in a press statement. “This competition empowers local communities to create jobs and build the transportation networks they need in order to win the future.”

The announcement comes right on time. We found out in April that the money had been appropriated, and knew that a call for applications couldn’t come any sooner than 60 days after that. Applications will be due in the fall.

As we reported earlier, this round of TIGER will be all for capital investments, not planning or project design, and, as in TIGER II, applicants will have to provide at least a 20 percent match.

The TIGER program has been hugely successful, attracting more than 2,500 applications requesting more than $79 billion in the first two rounds. It’s also helped re-shape the discourse around transportation policy, proving the efficacy of competitive grant processes and encouraging a shift away from strictly formula-based funding. By having states and regions compete, the focus shifts to outcomes and performance, which forces decision-makers to use funds more wisely.

According to USDOT, “Projects will be selected based on their ability to contribute to the long-term economic competitiveness of the nation, improve the condition of existing transportation facilities and systems, improve energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improve the safety of U.S. transportation facilities and improve the quality of living and working environments of communities through increased transportation choices and connections. The Department will also focus on projects that are expected to quickly create and preserve jobs and spur rapid increases in economic activity.”

Since March, I’ve been doing a monthly video series called “On the Go with Ray LaHood,” where I respond to questions from the public. I want to thank Streetsblog readers for supplying the bulk of the questions we received this month.

But in my latest “On the Go” video, I was only able to answer a few of them. Since you provided so many great questions, I thought it would be nice to answer a few extra ones right here on Streetsblog.

On my Fast Lane blog, Josef Szende asked, “Does the USDOT consider its job on creating a sustainable transit system to be over once the majority of the country is using electric vehicles?”

Josef, it’s true that I’m excited about Electric Vehicles. They’ve got a lot of potential to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and they really help solve the problem of tailpipe emissions. But many people don’t want to own cars–electric or otherwise. And, with transportation costs as the number two item in most household budgets, we know Americans need access to affordable transit options.

So this DOT is pushing forward to continue growing innovative transit systems across the U.S. For example, our Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has a very popular Urban Circulator program and a successful New Starts program that, on Monday, announced nearly $1.6 billion for 27 projects nationwide.

And earlier this week, to support President Obama’s emphasis on sustainability, the FTA announced more than $100 million in competitive grants for emerging clean fuel and hybrid or electric propulsion technologies for transit buses.

On Facebook, Kyle Merville asks, “How could DOT encourage a more even spread of transportation money to cities? How can the DOT invest in urban infrastructure and modernize it to better serve the citizens who depend on these systems daily?”

Well, Kyle, the answer is that DOT awards a number of grants to America’s urban areas. The FTA has a specific Urbanized Area Formula program for transit capital investments — including the kind of system maintenance you ask about. In addition, FTA also offers a Bus and Bus Facilities program, a Metropolitan and Statewide Planning program, and several other programs that make awards to cities.

We may not have a road program dedicated to urban areas, but that doesn’t mean the state departments of transportation don’t balance urban, suburban, and rural needs appropriately. In fact, many of the largest highway and bridge improvement projects our Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) funds are located in urban areas. The FHWA also has programs to improve air quality, and most of those awards end up in our nation’s cities.

Then we have our very popular TIGER I and TIGER II discretionary programs, where cities and regions applied directly for support. Our competitive TIGER awards funded many creative projects to solve problems across America — multi-use paths, transit systems, road and bridge projects — and many of these were in urban areas. And, if you look at the transportation recommendations the President has sent to Congress for 2012, we’ve made sure to include programs where cities and regional partnerships can come directly to us.

The last question comes from Clarence Eckerson, Jr., who asks, “Would you go for a bike ride with Streetfilms?”

I’m sorry to tell you this, Clarence, but Washington, DC’s Jay Mallin has beaten Streetfilms to the punch on this one. Earlier this month, Jay joined us for a DOT bicycle commute and produced this video. I hope everyone enjoys his video, and, once again, thanks for the terrific questions. Please keep them coming!

LaHood isn't happy with the GOP plan to privatize Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. Photo: Christian Science Monitor

Chairman Mica and I share a strong interest in high speed rail, particularly in the Northeast Corridor.  He should be commended for giving this topic the attention it deserves.

However, based upon our preliminary review, we have many questions about the Mica proposal’s feasibility.  At present, we believe Amtrak is the entity most capable of taking the next steps to modernize rail service in the Northeast Corridor, which is why the administration has serious concerns about any proposal to privatize Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. The administration also has the responsibility to ensure that taxpayer investments are protected and well-managed.

With 50 million people in the corridor and another 20 million coming over the next generation, the Northeast Corridor can and should be one of the top high speed rail corridors in the world.  I look forward to working with Chairman Mica to make that happen.

Note that LaHood had Facebook on in the background during his last video chat. (And he says he's not a hipster.)

Have a question for Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood? He’s all ears. He has been doing a series of video chats where he responds to questions from the public.

A DOT official told me they would like to “explicitly invite Streetsblog readers to submit their questions to the Secretary” for the next episode of “On the Go with Ray LaHood.”

There are 3 ways to submit questions. You can leave a comment on the Secretary’s blog, go to his Facebook discussion page, or tweet a question using hashtag #q4ray.

Go ahead, give him your best shot.

It’s no fireside chat, but Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been doing a series of video “dialogues” with people who submit questions online. Today’s installment is all about livability: one person asks what USDOT is doing to improve and expand bicycle infrastructure, another expresses excitement about high-speed rail expansion and asks about LaHood’s personal transportation habits, and another wants to know why all cars aren’t getting 60 miles to the gallon already.

Sec. Ray LaHood says everyone who needs the White House bill has it. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

So while we reporters have been busy poring over draft bills that, it later turns out, don’t accurately reflect the administration’s plans for the transportation reauthorization, the final bill has already been out there?

Not exactly. Committee staffers say they’ve received “technical assistance” from the White House but not a final bill. “Technical assistance” is Congressional jargon for getting a sneak peek at relevant sections of the president’s draft of the bill. But it looks like the White House is only releasing it like that – piece by piece, as needed, and only to Congressional staff.

Even that technical assistance was slow in coming, said one staffer. The leaked versions that were floating around probably helped convince the White House to be more forthcoming with their guidance, just so staffers could have an accurate idea of what the administration has in mind.

It’s unusual for Obama to publicly release his own draft of a piece of legislation – he generally leaves that to Congress. LaHood clearly seems to think that the people who need the bill have it, and I take that as a sign that we won’t be seeing any more from the White House.

Meanwhile, the action alerts we’ve seen today advocating for a big push for bike/ped funding shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign that the EPW Committee in the Senate is getting close to finalizing its language. According to inside sources, committee staff seems to be getting done with their draft, but that’s just at the staff level. Apparently that conversation has barely begun at the level of the senators themselves, and the staffers in their offices haven’t seen the committee draft yet. So it looks like there’s still a ways to go before we see a final bill.

Both the House and the Senate have recently stepped back from earlier talk of finalizing a bill by Memorial Day and are now shooting for “sometime in June.”

Photo credit: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel

As he’s said before, Mica doesn’t have a bill in his “back pocket.” It’s hard to say if he was praising or criticizing his predecessor, Rep. Jim Oberstar, when he told the APTA audience, “He had waited 32 years to become chair. He knew exactly what he wanted in the bill, and he hand-wrote it out and projected it up on a screen and everyone was to march, and I did, until we started to get picked off by the administration and other folks who had other ideas, and it never happened.”

Mica also announced a series of stakeholder meetings to be held in the last week of March to supplement the field hearings the committee has been holding around the country. The meetings will help lawmakers craft a transportation reauthorization bill. Mica told the APTA members that they will be among those invited. It will include “all the Washington folks that haven’t been heard.”

Then he’ll “buy beer and pizza” (and fruit smoothies, as requested by Sen. Barbara Boxer) and lawmakers will sit down and hash it all out, he told reporters after his speech.

As for the broader budget fight, Mica alluded to the current deal to pass another extension for three more weeks – “Then, my advice and counsel would be, grab a hold of your shorts and hang on,” he said. “It might be a wild ride.”

He said it’s “above his pay grade” to guess whether more extensions will follow. “It’s not the way to fund the government, but a lot of people were sent here with a mission to cut spending.”

Mica got in his usual jabs at Amtrak, which he likes to call a “Soviet-style” train operator, incapable of developing real high-speed rail. It’s a sad time for high-speed rail proponents, like him, who were excited about the president’s vision, he said, “It’s like trying to celebrate and you’ve got a box of cigars and the first three cigars explode in your face.”

In his opinion, Florida was a bad choice for a high-speed corridor, but he and other advocates should “dust ourselves off and move forward.” He said all future inter-modal centers will be built in downtowns (and not leave passengers “at a gas station outside of town”) with consideration given to transit connections, which Tampa doesn’t have.

Mica drew on his own personal history as a “transit-dependent” to explain his support for a strong public transportation system – and one with reliable service at all hours, not just rush hour.

“I became a fan [of public transportation] when I was young, and I didn’t always have the money for a car,” he said. “I took public transportation. I used to take the last bus out, when I worked all night at the Miami Herald in the mail room, and I took the first bus out in the morning, at 6:30. And over the weekend, I had two other jobs. So I personally know many people depend on the service you provide.”

In response to a question about the new inter-city rail caucus, just founded by Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Mica said he’s “not a big caucus-joiner” and encouraged people to put their energy into the committee process instead. He told them this is their chance to influence legislation – “you’ll never have a more open process than what I’m providing” – and told them that if the final bill is missing something, “it’s your fault” for not providing input.

LaHood also addressed the gathering, speaking only briefly before taking questions about transit safety, including the Public Transportation Safety Act, which he said was a priority for him this year. He said he was stunned, after Washington, D.C.’s metro crash, that DOT has no jurisdiction over transit safety. The Banking Committee passed the bill last year, and they’re still tweaking it. “If you look at the bill, which we hope will be reintroduced, and if there are some things you don’t like about it, let us know.”

He paid homage to the inter-agency Partnership for Sustainable Communities, and listed the benefits it provides, like collaboration on a TIGER grant to build affordable housing and sidewalks near transit in Kansas City, Missouri.

Not surprisingly, LaHood was asked (not by me, this time!) how the administration plans to pay for its transportation proposal, and not surprisingly, he said he looked forward to working with Congress on that, but a gas tax hike is off the table.

One attendee said that people in London are paying $12 a gallon for gas and perhaps our gas tax could go up a bit more, as it did under President Ronald Reagan, for the dual purpose of deficit reduction and transportation. But LaHood balked at the questioner’s cajoling for a candid answer “just among us friends in this room.”

“I wish that were the case,” LaHood joked back. “Do you know how many media people are sitting in the back, just waiting for me to say something? Do you want me to keep my job? (“Yes, sir, I do, very much!”) Then don’t be asking your question.”

Barbara Boxer wants to see TIFIA strengthened, the gas tax indexed, and TIGER maintained. Photo: Tanya Snyder

Boxer: It’s a good news, bad news story. Good news, because people are getting better fuel economy; bad news because the Highway Trust Fund is slipping. And I’m looking for ways to get more money in there but they’re hard to come by. And because I drive a hybrid I’m not paying my fair share.

Ranking Member James Inhofe: That’s all right, you ought to see what I’m driving. We average out.

Boxer: I’m sure we average out. But you’re paying more for the roads than I am. I may be on the road as long as you are but I’m getting 50 miles to the gallon. So I’m not filling up the car and you’re paying more than I am. So it’s not fair to him [Inhofe] – I mean I think I’m wise to this, but we all should pay our fair share. So I think vehicle-miles-traveled is the way to go but I don’t seem to get much excitement when I mention it. I think we could do it easily, when you re-up your registration, this is how many miles I have now, then – but I don’t have any takers. Indexing the gas tax – indexing, not raising it – I could do that.

Boxer started the hearing with a ringing endorsement for a major expansion of the TIFIA loan program. She said both she and House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica “embrace a much more robust TIFIA program.”

She said the federal government is almost entirely shielded from risk with TIFIA. She alluded to the leveraging that is possible when federal funds are used right, using as an example the Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail project in Los Angeles, which made more than $500 million available at a cost of just $20 million to the federal government.

TIFIA loans only cover up to a third of a project, with local and state matches covering the rest. Boxer suggested allowing TIFIA to cover half of the project. DOT Budget Director Chris Bertram said that would be a mixed blessing – fewer projects could get federal money and less private investment would be involved, but it could be beneficial for projects that have a harder time attracting private investment.

Boxer asked Secretary LaHood, who was testifying at the hearing before the Environment and Public Works Committee, to support a TIFIA expansion. “In your budget, you call for a very large six-year bill,” she said. “But you really don’t – you say you look forward to working with us on how to fund it. I would respectfully suggest – and this is just me, speaking for myself – that this TIFIA program could be of enormous consequence. My understanding is that we are funding it at a very low level and the requests far surpass what we’ve been funding it at.”

Ray LaHood still won't get specific about how to fund the administration's transportation proposal. Photo: Tanya Snyder

But Secretary LaHood wasn’t nearly as specific as Boxer about how to fund the president’s $556 billion transportation proposal. He responded to Boxer’s push for expanded TIFIA funding by saying, “We like TIFIA,” and throwing in that he also likes the infrastructure bank and tolling. The president’s budget for 2012 authorizes $450 million for TIFIA – almost four times more than the amount authorized in SAFETEA-LU.

LaHood has been telling lawmakers, “We want to work with Congress on that,” when they ask him for funding justification for the president’s ambitious transportation proposal. The EPW hearing was the fourth time in a week that LaHood has appeared before Senate panels to be grilled about where the money for the plan was supposed to come from – especially with a gas tax hike off the table.

But when is that “working with Congress” part supposed to begin, if not now, while appearing daily before Senate committees that are trying to have a conversation with him about it? When asked about that after the hearing, LaHood just repeated, “We’re going to work with Congress.” But what funding options are even open for debate? “I’m not even going to get into that,” he said. “I’m going to wait to sit down in a room with these members of the House and Senate and see where they want to go.”

Both LaHood and Boxer also referred to a provision in the House budget proposal that would call for unobligated TIGER funds to be rescinded. The Senate is stalemated on the budget right now. LaHood and Boxer both condemned the call for rescissions. LaHood said the rescissions were a bad idea if Congress is trying to create jobs.

“People are expecting this money,” LaHood said. “And some of them are starting to realize now that if H.R.1 were to pass in the Senate, this money would come back to the federal treasury. And their dreams and aspirations and projects for high-speed rail, for transit, for light rail projects, streetcars and other things, roads and bridges, it would come back to the treasury.”

“They just cut the legs out from under these TIGER grants,” Boxer said.

Sec. LaHood immediately after addressing the Bike Summit. Photo by Clarence Eckerson.

Last year, he captivated the Summit crowd with his famous “Tabletop Speech” and his declaration that “this is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”

Tonight, League of American Bicyclists President Andy Clarke introduced LaHood with the high praise, “He talks about bikes – not just with us – but with other people too!”

LaHood encouraged the attendees, who will be going to Capitol Hill to lobby their representatives on Thursday, to “talk to your member of Congress about the importance of making communities cycle-friendly.” He reminded them that Ohio Congressman Steve LaTourette went from ridiculing cycling to supporting it after hearing from committed advocates. (LaHood was polite enough to not mention LaTourette by name, but everyone in the room knew who he was talking about.)

“I want you to work hard on your members of Congress,” LaHood exhorted the crowd. “We really need your help more now than, maybe, ever before. Because you know that a new crowd is in town and they have a little different agenda and it’s being played out in a way that maybe doesn’t reflect the kind of values many of us believe in.”

LaHood gets a standing ovation at the National Bike Summit. Photo by Clarence Eckerson.

He didn’t talk much about the “big, bold” transportation plan proposed by “that fella I work for” (President Obama), other than asking attendees to “charge up to Capitol Hill” and push members to support cycling.

LaHood bolstered his own cred with the room full of cyclists by telling stories of how he and his wife go cycling on the C&O Canal trail every weekend (though I think he meant the Capital Crescent), and recounting his own early years riding a Schwinn all around town, and how he bought bikes for his four kids and his nine grandkids to make sure cycling was part of their lives.

“You have a full partner – many more than one partner – at DOT,” he told them.

After LaHood’s speech, participants migrated a few blocks away for a reception honoring Bike Pittsburgh as the Advocacy Organization of the Year, Jackie Douglas of Boston’s LivableStreets as Advocate of the Year, the New Belgium Brewing Company as the Business Advocate of the Year, the Michigan Complete Streets Coalition as Winning Campaign of the Year, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition for Best Practices, the Willamette Pedestrian Coalition’s Stephanie Routh for the Susie Stephens Joyful Enthusiasm Award, and the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling got the award for Innovation.

Tomorrow, the Bike League will announce this year’s Bicycle Friendly Businesses and Universities (a new category). NACTO will release its Urban Bikeway Design Guide, written to bring bicycle innovations long ignored by AASHTO and the FHWA into roadway design. And NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, seemingly unfazed after being named in a lawsuit by anti-bike-lane plaintiffs yesterday, will address the gathering, along with Congressional Bike Caucus founder Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. A representative from the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Campaign will be the lunchtime keynote.

Secretary Ray LaHood indicates how many details he’s going to give Congress on how to fund the transportation budget proposal (Photo: AP)

On Valentine’s Day, the Obama administration released its budget proposal for next year. It included significant cuts to some programs, like heating assistance for the poor, and modest increases in others, like education and energy. But the president saved his biggest doozy for transportation – $556 billion over six years, about twice the current spending levels.

LaHood immediately grew impatient with the inevitable question – “How are you suggesting we pay for this?” Right away, he threw that hot potato back to Congress, saying it was up to the legislative branch to figure it out.

He could have started that process this morning, when he appeared before the Senate Budget Committee, but he again seemed impatient with the very question. (And this was the Budget Committee, after all – of course their primary concern is going to be the financial piece.)

The Senate, remember, is still controlled by Democrats, so he had an easier time there than he’ll have in the House. But everyone in Washington is focused on reining in deficit spending, although they may differ on how and how much.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said he was “flabbergasted” by the size of the president’s budget request – a 62 percent increase for the USDOT “at a time when all of us know we’ve got to contain spending and do something about the surging debt we’ve got.”

Indeed, LaHood’s persistent refusal to engage on the funding question – at a time when Congress is obsessively trying to cut spending – is beginning to sound tone-deaf. Every time anyone presses him for specifics on how to make this plan work, he returns to soundbites about how bold the plan is.

Well sure, Mr. Secretary, we like bold, but we like possible even more.

“We’re placing this country at risk,” Sessions said. “In all honesty, if you can’t tell us what kind of tax you think would fund this and are prepared to defend it, I think there’s zero chance of us passing such a tax as this.”

But Lahood and Obama haven’t proposed a tax. Experts on and off the Hill agree that the only credible way to fund the country’s current infrastructure program – much less an expanded one – is a gas tax increase or a shift to a vehicle-miles-traveled fee. The administration says these options are “off the table,” leading Sessions to deride the mystery funding source as the “new phantom tax; the not-gas-tax-tax.”

Committee Chair Kent Conrad – a Democrat and a big supporter of the secretary’s – also asked how LaHood proposed to close the ever-growing funding gap in the Highway Trust Fund. What are the options for closing this gap, and how realistic are they?

LaHood’s answer? “We want to work with Congress on our way forward.”

LaHood acknowledged that the Highway Trust Fund is deficient. “People driving less; they’re driving more fuel efficient automobiles,” he said. “As things stay stirred up in the Middle East, in countries that produce crude oil, we know that gasoline prices are going to continue to go up, and probably as a result people will be driving even less frequently than they are today, and that’s not going to help us in the collection of the gas tax.”

The secretary asserted that the transportation bill is a jobs bill, and that the effect on the economy would be positive.

Some senators proposed non-tax-related sources of revenue like Build America Bonds and tolling. LaHood mentioned the proposed infrastructure bank and the TIFIA loan program as possible funding sources (though the I-bank, especially, is not really a source as much as a destination of funding, at least at first).

Several Republicans – and some Democrats – also criticized the small percentage of the stimulus package that was devoted to infrastructure spending. They said that if we were worried about jobs and crumbling infrastructure, that was our big-spending moment to take care of it. And that moment, they say, has passed.