Streetsblog Capitol Hill

House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) said this morning that getting permission from Republican leadership to find more revenues to fund the transportation bill was a “major breakthrough” but still won’t say where the money will come from.

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.

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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.

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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.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood became a darling of the bicycling advocacy community last year when he jumped up on a table at the National Bike Summit and affirmed his support for biking, later declaring “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”

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.

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Last month, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood invited Streetsblog readers to submit questions for a Q&A installment on his blog, Fast Lane. Here are his answers. (For maximum effect, picture the secretary delivering these remarks while standing on a table.)

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.

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In an email statement to Streetsblog, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressed concerns about the GOP plan to privatize the Northeast Corridor:

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.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters today that the administration sent its draft bill to Capitol Hill two weeks ago. “It’s with the people that it needs to be with,” LaHood said, “the staff that’s working on a bill.”

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.”