Source: RAND Corporation

The brilliant thing about car-sharing is that it leads people to drive less by providing access to cars. It allows people to give up their personal vehicles (along with the gas, maintenance, parking, and insurance costs they entail) without giving up the ability to use the car once in a while when necessary. It diminishes the need for parking spaces, since one vehicle can serve several households. And it makes people think harder about the trips they take, since each trip constitutes a higher cost than in a personal vehicle, which come with high upfront costs but low per-trip costs, encouraging more driving just to get your money’s worth out of your investment.

But only 0.27 percent of U.S. drivers participate in car-sharing programs.

A recent study from the RAND Corporation estimates that that number could rise to 4.5 percent if policies were put in place to support car-sharing. RAND’s outer estimate of the potential of car-sharing goes as high as 12.5 percent of the 21-and-older population of major cities. The potential for greenhouse gas emissions savings is significant.

The RAND authors cite a 2008 survey showing that for every shared vehicle in use, nine to 13 private vehicles are taken off the road, and that half of car-sharing participants either sold a car or didn’t buy a new car because of their membership. Another survey found that average vehicle ownership per household fell from an already-low 0.47 to 0.24 cars after adopting car-sharing. Average vehicle ownership per household is 1.87 in the United States.

RAND attributes the greenhouse gas reductions from car-sharing to a) fewer vehicle miles traveled, b) fewer cars being manufactured, and c) more efficient vehicles being used more of the time. After all, car-sharing can avoid SUV syndrome, where people buy a big, heavy car for the one time a year that they actually go into the mountains with it, and then spend the rest of the year driving alone on highways and trying to park it in small spaces. Also, intensively-used shared cars will be replaced more often than private vehicles, meaning that more of them will have the most modern fuel-efficiency ratings. The report doesn’t mention the GHG savings if car-sharing results in the building of fewer roads or parking spaces.

The estimates of car-sharing’s potential market penetration are among the most helpful elements of the RAND report.

In the most optimistic scenario — 20.3 million car-share users, or about 36 times the current rate — car-sharing would reduce overall car emissions by 1.7 percent. A more realistic scenario of 7.5 million users, which would still require the widespread adoption of policies to support car-sharing, leads to a 0.6 percent emissions reduction. The authors provide a “cautionary note that estimates of growth in vehicle sharing have previously been proven wrong.” They cite a 1994 study that predicted that the market potential in Germany was 2.45 million members; “however, ten years later, the market stood at 70,000.”

On a per-person basis, car-sharing doesn’t cut emissions as much as transit. One person taking transit to work instead of driving can save more than two metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, according to APTA, as opposed to the above estimate of 0.89 tons per person car-sharing. But car-sharing also works in tandem with transit, functioning best where people can rely on transit for many trips. Car-sharing remains a largely urban phenomenon, according to the RAND report, with the only non-urban success stories on college campuses or eco-communes.

The other major contribution of the report is that it suggests some ways to make car-sharing more attractive. They say it will never take off unless car-sharing is 1) cheaper and/or more convenient than owning a personal automobile, 2) profitable for providers, and 3) reaches critical mass in a geographic area. To make that happen, they recommend reducing impediments in insurance policies and tax codes and increasing provisions for “one-way, dynamic vehicle sharing,” and better ride-matching services. The recommendations also include the promotion of short-distance, low-speed “neighborhood vehicles,” like the golf carts senior citizens drive around retirement communities, and the promotion of driverless vehicles. The report doesn’t explain in detail how driverless cars would enhance vehicle-sharing.

That long car commute could be destroying your health. Photo: AOL News

Less attention has been paid to the threat of the lengthy car commute. But a new study [PDF] from the Center for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health and American Cancer Society is confirming what many have long suspected: lengthy car commutes are terrible for your health.

A study of more than 4,000 residents of greater Dallas found that those who commute more than 15 miles by car get less exercise and have larger waistlines and poorer cardiovascular health. Those who commuted more than 20 miles were also at greater risk for high blood pressure.

The results were adjusted for age, gender, education, family circumstances and health history.

One rather obvious explanation noted by researchers is that long commutes replace time that could be dedicated to exercise. The study’s authors also noted that “participants with long commutes were more likely to live in suburban neighborhoods, which often possess built environment features that are associated with physical inactivity and sedentary behavior.”

In addition, high blood pressure may also be caused by the stress of commuting, or the social isolation it produces, researchers said.

The Nationals' new stadium has turned a dead urban zone into a hotspot. Photo: NRDC Switchboard

But that doesn’t stop too many cities, and there are examples of places that have gambled on sports facilities and won big.

There’s a new member of that club now: Washington, DC. It’s been nearly 10 years since the city green-lighted a package of 30-year bonds for a new home for the Nationals baseball franchise in a depressed southeastern section of the city. Kaid Benfield at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard blog reports that the investment is paying off:

According to developers in the area, building didn’t really become financially feasible there until the city committed to the ballpark. Today, the neighborhood’s new projects are about 30 percent built. In addition to the new commercial properties, the area’s residential population has increased from about 1,000 to more than 3,500 and should eventually reach 16,000.

It is especially heartening that even those originally opposed to the stadium like what they see. Neighborhood resident Naomi Monk was a prominent skeptic, arguing that the park would only be an eyesore benefiting millionaire players and businessmen, with nothing in it for low-income residents. But in March she told Fisher that “I have to say, it’s been for the betterment of the community. Our crime seems to be under control. The neighborhood looks 100 percent better. The new housing is a great improvement.”

I’m not going to make a broader point about the extent to which public investment in sports is a good thing. It’s likely situational and, though it has been enormously beneficial here in Washington twice (though in the case of Verizon Center the city paid only for infrastructure), and it also appears to have been beneficial in nearby Baltimore, the facts and circumstances vary.

Benfield reports that the tax issued on big businesses to support the stadium is bringing in twice what was expected. Plus additional property taxes related to new investment have added $13 million to the city’s coffers. Nice, for a change, to see a city enjoying a windfall at this moment in history.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Bike Delaware shares a League of American Bicyclists’ report showing that one in four collisions between cyclists and cars involve cyclists being hit from behind. Bike Portland reports the city’s first open streets event of the season attracted an astounding 28,000 people. And Transit in Utah says sustainable transportation advocates need to do a better job developing sales pitches and buzz words.

Factoring in proximity to bike lanes, street connectivity, topography, and commuter cycling rates, the Bike Score algorithm rated Minneapolis America's most bikeable city. Image: Walk Score

The people behind Walk Score, the real estate rating service that goes by the slogan “Drive Less, Live More,” are out with a new rating system, based on hard data, that should prove useful to prospective city dwellers: Bike Score.

The company launched the Bike Score website today, using its new algorithm to rank the ten most bikeable cities in the country. (We covered their release of city rankings for transit last month.) Minneapolis ran away with the top prize with a 79 percent bikeability rating. San Francisco tied Portland for number two, despite the fact that hilliness was a factor. D.C. and New York also placed highly (while the NYC core rates very highly on Bike Score, the bike lane deserts outside the center city score quite low).

The staff of Walk Score is made up of a whole lot of bike commuters. No wonder they were excited to launch a new bikeability ranking. Photo courtesy of Walk Score

In other bikeability rating news, the League of American Bicyclists released its 2012 list of Bicycle Friendly Communities today. There’s a lot of overlap between the BFCs and the Bike Score winners, but they are compiled use vastly different methodologies. For one thing, you won’t find two of the League’s top three cycling cities on the Bike Score list because Bike Score, so far, only looks at cities with populations over 200,000. Sorry, Boulder and Davis.

Colorado and Montana did well in the League’s rankings this year. Missoula and Durango moved up to gold, and the Colorado towns of Gunnison and Aspen made it onto the list for the first year, rolling in at the silver level. Look for your city on their updated BFC list [PDF].

The League bases its BFC choices on somewhat subjective criteria. They look for the “five Es”: engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation & planning, and enforcement. Decisions are made by staff and external reviewers, in consultation with local stakeholders.

Bike Score, on the other hand, is based on pure numbers. Individual addresses are rated on a scale of 0-100 based on four factors:

• the availability of bike infrastructure (with on-street and off-street facilities weighted differently)
• the hilliness of the area (the one factor a city can’t control)
• amenities and road connectivity
• the number of bike commuters (because “biking is social” and there’s safety in numbers, explained Walk Score’s chief technology officer and co-founder Matt Lerner)

To then determine the score for the city, the individual address scores are used to compute scores for each block, and then the block-by-block scores are weighted by population density.

“For every location in the city, we add up the number of meters of bike lane, and there’s a distance-to-K function so the closer you have a meter of bike lane, the more valuable it is, and we don’t give you any credit after about a mile out,” said Lerner. “For every address, we do that calculation. It’s a new metric that is really about a specific location, not about the city overall. So what we’re really measuring is, for average person in that city, how good is biking.”

Note: The capability to score your own home isn’t available on the website yet, as it is for Transit Score and Walk Score, but Lerner says they hope to enable that soon so real estate agents can use Bike Score to advertise the homes they have for sale, as they do now with the other two. Walk Score has an Apartment Search function that allows renters to search by nearby amenities, distance to transit, commute time, price, number of bedrooms – and, of course, Walk Score. It interfaces with craigslist to show the complete ad all in one place with the walk/bike/transit information.

Right now you can plug in any address in the country and get a Walk Score for it, but even once Bike Score’s full functionality is rolled out, it won’t be so widespread. “With Bike Score we have to go out and get bike lane data from each city,” Lerner said, “so it’s more of a manual process.” They’re taking votes via Twitter for the next cities they should score.

Chicago's transportation "action plan" calls for increased camera-based traffic enforcement. Image: Chicago DOT

Published last week, the “Chicago Forward Action Agenda” [PDF] places a very strong emphasis on safety, in addition to setting admirable cycling ridership targets and goals for transit investment.

Highlights include:

• A target of zero traffic fatalities annually in 10 years. (The city has been averaging about 50 a year.)
• 20 mph zones in all the city’s residential areas.
• A five percent bike mode share on trips less than five miles. (Currently 1.3 percent of Chicagoans travel by bike, but in the central city the figure is as high as two percent.)
• An emphasis on street maintenance, or “fix it first.”

In his introduction, Emanuel makes it clear that it’s a new day at Chicago DOT: ”Where we once built expressways that divided our communities, we are now reconnecting neighborhoods with new bus lanes and extensive and expanding bicycle facilities that offer safe, green, and fit ways to travel for all ages.”

To achieve the safety targets, the plan makes a commitment to address problem intersections, calling for the city to “analyze all fatal crashes involving pedestrian and cyclists” and improve the city’s top 10 traffic collision locations annually. The city’s ability to install speed enforcement cameras — recently granted by the state legislature and City Council — also figures prominently in achieving the safety targets.

The document reinforces the city’s promise to invest in new infrastructure to improve bicycling and transit, including the already-stated goals of building out protected bikeways and high-quality rapid busways. Among other projects, the plan calls for the installation of 500 new bike racks per year and 100 transit-priority traffic signals.

The “Action Agenda” appears to be modeled after New York’s sustainable streets strategic plan, laying out a roadmap for Chicago DOT over the “next 24 months.” The safety benchmarks are especially ambitious. No other major American city has set a goal of zero traffic deaths, a target first pursued by Scandinavian governments through a set of wide-ranging policies guided by the principle known as “Vision Zero.”

This is the city’s first ever comprehensive plan for transportation, according to Steven Vance at Grid Chicago. ”Much of the plan’s actions are new and impressive, and it puts onto paper tasks and activities that CDOT was already doing (or announced it will do, like build new CTA stations),” Vance wrote last week. “It gives the public more information than it’s ever had about how it can hold CDOT accountable for maintaining streets, improving traffic safety, and managing a transportation system.”

In an interview with Vance, Klein said the city was aiming high with its zero traffic fatalities goal, and hoping to come close. ”We have to push ourselves,” Klein said. “Some things are aspirational.”

The city will be reporting regularly on its progress toward the stated goals, said Klein.

This campaign season, opponents of smart growth policies are running against urbanism in greater Portland. Photo: The Oregonian

Even in Portland, a group called the Oregon Transformation Project is running candidates to overturn the region’s longstanding commitment to urbanism. Engineer Scotty at Portland Transport posits that the smart growth opponents are motivated by self-interested fear of the urban renaissance:

Some density opponents are staunch conservatives, motivated by cultural politics, free-market economics, or political solidarity with other conservative constituencies such as big oil. Many other density opponents come from the left — viewing big-ticket capital transportation projects (as well as urban renewal projects designed to encourage infill) as little more than corruption and cronyism, indistinguishable (other than in scope) from the antics of Wall Street banksters, with greenwashing being used to deceive a gullible public. But a common theme that motivates many of the critics on both the left and the right, is a dislike of density itself.

A billboard run by OTP compares a picturesque view of Mount Hood with a grainy, black-and-white photo of downtown Portland, with the words “CONGESTION DENSITY CRIME” lying under the latter. The implication being that if the current course continues, much of Clackamas County will soon resemble the worst attributes of Portland. There seems to be a fear that single-family neighborhoods all over the tri-county area will soon be overrun by apartment housing of the worst sort, and that middle-class communities will be transformed overnight into budding Rockwoods. In some cases, this fear is expressed in near-apocalyptic terms, with dire warnings about an urbanist tyranny literally forcing people out of homes and cars and into Soviet style block housing. (The term “Potemkin Village” gets used quite a bit as well — although the term originates from Tsarist Russia and has nothing to do with communism or forced living arrangements.)

For many people, public investment in new urbanism represents public disinvestments in where they live. One other geometric fact about density is that unless the local population explodes, density can’t go up everywhere. If the overall population stays more or less constant, and one neighborhood sees its density rise, then simple mathematics dictates that some other community will see its population decline. Property values and tax base will go down; and the quality of services will decline, leading to a vicious cycle of decay.

Given all of that, it’s not surprising that a backlash is continuing to brew. The recession hit many people hard, and when government elects not to maintain the status quo, it’s not hard to see how people feel abandoned or even threatened. People are attached to their homes, and will often go to great lengths to defend them.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Extraordinary Observations examines how college graduates cluster in cities. A View from the Cycle Path looks at average commuting distances across Canada’s largest cities. And Human Transit analyzes Tweets about transit agencies in an attempt to assess performance.

The West Town Girls' Bike Club in Chicago's Humboldt Park. The neighborhood, once resistant to bike infrastructure, now embraces it. Photo: Grid Chicago

The perception of bike infrastructure as a sign of gentrification used to hold sway in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood too. But John Greenfield at Grid Chicago reports that attitudes toward bike lanes in this Latino and African-American neighborhood have shifted from resistance to enthusiasm:

People in Humboldt Park, a largely low-income Latino and African-American community on Chicago’s West Side, once opposed bike facilities as well. So it was a good feeling yesterday when I took my first spin on new buffered bike lanes under the giant Puerto Rican flag arches of the neighborhood’s Division Street business strip. I viewed them as a sign of how much attitudes about cycling have changed in Humboldt Park over the last decade. And as the city moves forward with the Streets for Cycling plan to install 100 miles of protected bike lanes within Mayor Emanuel’s first term, the story of the Division Street bike lanes offers a lesson on the need to engage local people in the process.

In 2003, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) installed bike lanes in gentrified, bike-crazy Wicker Park, located just east of Humboldt Park, on Division from Ashland Avenue to Western Avenue, the border between the two neighborhoods. The stretch of Division in Humboldt Park between Western to California Avenue, known as the Paseo Boricua (“Puerto Rican Way”) and defined by the flag arches, is the same road width. But Chicago aldermen have final say on whether bike facilities get built in their wards and Billy Ocasio, Humboldt Park’s alderman at the time, opposed extending the lanes into his ward, according to CDOT spokesman Pete Scales.

The Paseo, lined with Puerto Rican cafes, restaurants, bodegas and salsa clubs, has retained its character over the past decade, but times have changed since Ocasio vetoed the lanes. Wilson, who’s white, says he worked hard to get the blessing of local community leaders before opening West Town on the Paseo in 2009. Since then his organization has taught safe cycling and mechanics skills to hundreds of at-risk kids in Humboldt Park. The store also offers affordable repair services in a neighborhood that already had a vibrant cruiser bike culture as the home of the Chicago Cruisers, a mostly Puerto Rican club that organizes rides with dozens of members parading on classic Schwinns.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Transportation for America outlines its “Transportation Vote 2012″ campaign to bolster smart transportation policies in the upcoming election. Mobilizing the Region reports on how the Connecticut Legislature blew it this session when it came to transportation safety measures. And Walkable Dallas Fort Worth explains why the city’s grand plans for a central park are unlikely to succeed.

Streetsblog Capitol Hill will be publishing lightly today.

Source: FRED

Everyone’s trying to figure out why, after decades of consistent growth, the amount Americans drive is leveling off and even declining. The decline started during the recession, to be sure, but was more dramatic than in previous recessions. As the economy began to get back on its feet, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) just barely ticked upward — and then fell again.

High gas prices probably have something to do with it. Young people embracing cities over suburban living — and valuing smartphones more than cars — might have something to do with it. It could be peak car – the theory that continued growth in driving simply can’t go on forever.

Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider found the trend notable enough to give it this headline over the weekend: “This Collapse In Automobile Usage Is Completely Unprecedented In The American Economy.”

Looking at VMT data now available on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s Economic Research site, Weisenthal posted two charts that put the one above in a little bit of perspective. (Note that these look somewhat different from the first chart because they look at the change from year to year, not the absolute numbers.)

Source: Business Insider

The two lines — GDP and VMT — track pretty closely together until just now. The rate of change in GDP more or less holds steady, but the VMT line takes a major dip. This was what Weisenthal found so unbelievable: that the reduction in VMT could be decoupled from economic fluctuations. But then he remembered something else that’s seemingly decoupled from GDP these days: employment.

When the blue line dips, that means the "population not in the labor force" increases. Source: Business Insider

The graph shows a rough correlation between growth in the number of people out of the workforce and decline in VMT. Indeed, this has been called a “jobless recovery” so the growth in people commuting probably has not been as strong as the rise in GDP.

Streetsblog’s Angie Schmitt tackled this issue in a post two months ago and concluded that VMT was dropping despite job growth, and in terms of absolute numbers, that seems to be true. The chart above adds complexity to the picture but doesn’t discount Angie’s conclusion. High gas prices are still causing people to leave the car in the garage and take transit. Decline in exurban growth and strengthening preferences for walkable development mean trips get shorter and can even be taken without the use of the automobile.

It remains to be seen what will happen when or if employment fully bounces back, but there’s reason to believe the downward trend in miles driven could have legs.

Dallas wants to add another downtown freeway. Jason Roberts says the city will soon have to confront the limits to car-based planning. Photo: Freelancecrunch.com

This Dallas highway proposal could turn out differently than previous ones. There is real opposition at the grassroots level. And even though the majority of local decision makers are supportive, a notable few have vocally joined the opposition. Still, the endless road widening campaigns and the complete lack of vision are getting to Jason Roberts at Bike Friendly Oak Cliff – and to other people he knows. Roberts says the Big D’s apparent inability face up to its unsustainable development patterns will be its downfall:

What we’re witnessing today is a generational divide where outdated philosophies are represented by a leadership that refuses to acknowledge the obvious fact that their children are all saying, “I’d rather live in Austin/Portland/NY/SF/Chicago than Dallas.” Stubbornly, the parents keep saying, “they’ll come back for the jobs,” without realizing that the jobs are starting to go where the people want to be. We’re well aware of the $1.4 billion levee toll road, and the Winfrey Point parking debacle at the Dallas Arboretum (both ironic due to their nature vs. machine conflict), but another instance also making the news is the “lack of parking” headlines in the historic (and walkable) Bishop Arts District. Every week we’re seeing one costly issue after another related to our endless pursuit of maintaining unsustainable suburban development patterns, and the solutions are always the same: take more land, and give it to cars. For some reason, the adage “When you’re in a hole, stop digging” has been completely ignored, and I’m beginning to become numb to the monthly, “I’m finally leaving Dallas!” emails that friends keep sending me.

While other major US cities are disincentivizing auto use and incentivizing mixed transportation models in order to balance their costly strain on infrastructure, we continue to do the reverse.  It’s obvious that our leadership is going to have to eventually take a stand (and a few arrows) and say, “we’re going to have to try something different,” or else they’re going to be the embarrassing “Before” picture to an eventual leader who decides to take the inevitable path that every other city around them is taking. Like George Wallace in 1963, Dallas is waiting for its Bobby Kennedy.

Elsewhere on the Network today: The Washington Area Bicyclists Association tells how they determined that DC-area police don’t know much about cycling and traffic law. Walk Bike Lee shares an expert’s advice that complete streets should be adapted to their surroundings, not shaped by a cookie cutter. And Mobilizing the Region reports that New Jersey’s Camden County is getting bike-share.

Source: CBO

Would stricter fuel economy rules bankrupt transportation funding in America? The Congressional Budget Office seems to think so, but environmentalists are quick to say that the system was hurtling toward bankruptcy anyway.

Under a new rule proposed by the NHTSA and the EPA, CAFE standards are expected to raise the average fuel economy of the new-vehicle fleet from 34.1 miles per gallon — the average anticipated for 2016 and beyond under current standards — to 49.6 mpg. That’s fantastic news for the environment, but for those counting on gas consumption to pay for essential infrastructure, a recent CBO study suggests it would be a disaster.

Just how big a disaster is a matter of some dispute. The CBO says that between now and 2022, revenues — already insufficient to meet transportation needs, already causing endless gridlock in Congress — would shrink by $57 billion. By the time most cars on the road are in compliance with the new standards, about 2040, the CBO says that would mean a 21 percent drop in funds available for infrastructure spending.

Deron Lovaas of NRDC says the CBO is “sniffing fumes” with its analysis:

To set the record straight, the correct estimate is a loss of $2.5 billion over those 10 years—a reduction of just one percent of the current revenues. The CBO actually noted this themselves in small print in a footnote on page six of the report: “The new CAFE standards would not take effect until 2017, so they would reduce gasoline tax revenues between 2012 and 2022 by less than 1 percent, CBO estimates.”[1]

During 2012-2022, the actual fuel-efficiency-related revenue reduction pales in comparison to the shortfall of $147 billion that CBO estimates in their baseline case without the fuel-efficiency improvements. The $100 billion-plus gap between supply and need from the outdated revenue system is the real issue…

Consequently, it’s fair to say CBO understated the crisis in transportation finance when looking back and vastly overstated the role of fuel economy standards on finance looking forward.

Either way, in the long run it only makes sense to disassociate fuel consumption from the Highway Trust Fund.

Fuel economy is indisputably a good thing and one that should be incentivized with higher gas prices — and raising the gas tax can help accomplish that. But if people drive, they should also pay for the congestion they cause, the infrastructure they use, and the infrastructure that keeps other people from causing even more congestion.

In an era where people are driving less and opting for more fuel efficient vehicles, the gas tax is an inadequate way to pay for infrastructure. Fuel usage is increasingly unrelated to how much congestion or wear and tear a driver causes. Electric vehicles, hybrids, smart cars and other fuel-sippers are starting to sever that connection.

The conversation over raising the gas tax must be accompanied by a discussion of how to replace the gas tax with something more sustainable.

Image: AmericaBikes

At a press conference outside the Capitol this morning, where gusty winds nearly carried off the visual aids (if it weren’t for a few diligent supporters), bicycle advocates joined members of Congress to unveil the results of a new survey about federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. The telephone poll of 1,003 Americans, commissioned by the advocacy group America Bikes and conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, was unequivocal: 83 percent said that federal bike-ped funding should increase, or at the very least be maintained.

“Even we were surprised,” said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “From this day forward, we can say with total confidence that this issue has bipartisan support and is in the national interest.”

The poll is timely, coming the day after the first official meeting of the House-Senate conference committee charged with hammering out a compromise transportation bill before policy expires on June 30. The Senate bill includes some protections for bike-ped programs and devolves certain funding decisions to cities and local governments, while early drafts of the House bill eliminated those programs altogether.

Even more notable than the overwhelming support for current funding levels (and “increasing” had the edge over “maintaining,” 47 percent to 36) was the constant level of support across geographic, demographic, economic, and — perhaps most surprisingly — political boundaries. Among self-identified Republicans, 80 percent still favored maintaining or increasing bike-ped funding, compared to 88 percent of Democrats and 86 percent of Independents.

“Every way you cut the numbers, it makes it all the more perverse that a few members of Congress would be opposed to this,” Clarke told Streetsblog.

Mount Bikemore: Reps. Petri and Blumenauer, Sens. Cardin and Durbin. Photo: Ben Goldman

Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Congressmen Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Tom Petri (R-WI) were on hand to tout the survey’s results and defend the importance of bicycle and pedestrian programs.

“Some people fight crime, some people fight terrorism,” said Durbin, enumerating just a few reasons to enter public service. “The Tea Party came to fight bikes.” Durbin, who sits on the transportation bill conference committee, said that even his suburban and rural constituents are incredibly proud of their bicycle infrastructure and want to see continued federal support.

Fellow conferee Blumenauer invoked the “soft-spoken” mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, as one leader who understands the link between bike-friendliness and the retention of young graduates from colleges and universities. (The Princeton survey found over 90 percent of respondents aged 18-29 support bike-ped.) Chicago, along with New York and Portland, will soon join Washington in embracing bike-share programs, and Blumenauer pointed out that in addition to bicycling’s obvious benefits to health and congestion mitigation, “D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare is the only mass transit system in the United States fully funding its operating costs.” (Well, close enough.)

Clarke praised Petri, the lone Republican lawmaker present, for his “courage and fortitude” in defending bicycle programs against a strong prevailing wind from the right wing of his own party — though Petri questioned whether his actions can truly be called courageous if 83 percent of Americans are with him. Petri previously co-sponsored an amendment to the controversial House bill, H.R. 7, which would protect crucial sources of bike-ped funds such as the Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School programs, but it was voted down in committee despite bipartisan support. Some have speculated that his steadfast defense of bike-ped funding may be the reason he was not nominated to the conference committee by Republican leadership.

“It’s great to have conferees [Durbin and Blumenauer] speaking out in support of this issue,” said Caron Whitaker, campaign director of America Bikes. Whitaker said she hopes the survey results will help convince the conference committee to retain the provisions of the Cardin-Cochran amendment to the Senate bill, which places bike-ped funding decisions directly in the hands of local authorities.

The greater D.C. community was also represented at the event as an example of what local commitment to biking and walking can look like. Angela Fox from the Crystal City Business Improvement District said she is focused on shifting perceptions of her modernist community, sandwiched between the Pentagon and Ronald Reagan Airport and built atop a system of underground tunnels. Under her direction, Crystal City has invested heavily in Capital Bikeshare, which Fox says has helped attract and retain the type of employees local firms prefer. (She has also expanded National Bike to Work Day, scheduled for next Friday, into Bike to Work Week in Crystal City.)

Local parent Sandra Moscoso was also on hand, having come directly from an event commemorating the first ever National Bike to School Day at nearby Lincoln Park. Her organizing campaign within the D.C. Public Schools system succeeded in getting 324 children to ride their bikes to school that morning, a strong showing that Moscoso believes is reason enough to want to see Safe Routes to School funding survive the conference process.

Pittsburgh faces transit cuts of 35 percent. Image: Port Authority of Allegheny County

The last four years have been rough on American transit riders, as fare increases and route reductions became the norm, even as demand for service increased.

For many cities there’s still no end in sight, as Pittsburgh can attest. The Steel City is facing across-the-board cuts of 35 percent if the state doesn’t step in — and that comes just a year after the Port Authority slashed transit spending 15 percent.

Yonah Freemark at the Transport Politic says Pittsburgh — and other cities around the country — are suffering as a result of systemic problems with the way transit is funded at the local and national level:

The service cuts planned would be, suffice it to say, devastating. As the maps [above] illustrate, the Port Authority’s austerity plans would eliminate almost half of the region’s routes. This is in a city where, according to the U.S. Census, more than 25% of households have no vehicle available and almost 20% of workers use transit to get to work — figures that are far higher than the national average or even that of the vast majority of American center cities.

Pittsburgh, of course, is far from alone. From Boston — where a 23% fare increase and service cuts were approved a month ago — to Athens, Georgia — where night bus service is expected to be fully eliminated — American cities continue to cut their transit offerings. Friday’s U.S. national jobs report, which showed about 20,000 fewer people working in transit operations in April compared to a year ago (a 5% decline), only reinforced the fact that when it comes to transit service, cuts are the rule of the game.

At least part of the problem is the reliance on local and state revenues to subsidize operations costs for bus and rail services in cities across the country. Whereas the federal government was willing to cover more than half of the costs of a $523 million light rail expansion to Pittsburgh’s North Shore — opened in March — it can do nothing to cover the agency’s $64 million operating deficit expected for next year because of Congressionally imposed rules about what Washington can and cannot pay for.

The counterintuitive result is that cities that are doing well economically are able to pay for improved transit services whereas those with many economic problems — the ones where transit is often needed most — are left to cut operations dramatically. Thus regional inequities are reinforced.

We recommend checking out Freemark’s entire article, a fresh and interesting take on an all-too-familiar problem.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Alarmist flyers are making the rounds in the nation’s capital as Washington attempts a zoning update, reports Greater Greater Washington. The League of American Bicyclists shares the latest research on making bike sharing socially equitable. And Spacing Toronto reports that Vancouver’s empty parking garages are being reused as agricultural spaces.

5:41 Adjourned. Thanks for following our live-blog coverage — all 3,276 words of it.

5:40 Boxer: I heard no lines in the sand here today, I heard lots of passion. I’m going to do everything to improve the Senate bill. I’m going to work with you, but it does streamline dramatically. Sen. Inhofe wouldn’t vote for a bill that doesn’t. If necessary, we’ll be back here in 20-some days.

5:39 John Mica: Important that we blend our ideas and maintain our principles.

5:38 That was the last speaker! House just called a vote, Mica giving a one-minute wrap-up, then Boxer will, and then we’re done here.

5:36 Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN), T&I member and ouster of Rep. James Oberstar: Given current budget environment, we need to make better use of taxpayer dollars without adding to the debt. Technology can make “game-changing innovations” to make better transportation infrastructure.

5:35 Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI), sponsor of controversial amendment to “eviscerate” NEPA (in words of many opponents): We can have low-cost construction without eviscerating the environment.

5:34 Sen. Boxer puts into the record the GAO study that all states are actually getting back more than they put into the trust fund.

5:31 Rep. James Lankford (R-OK): Essential to take control out of this room and bring it to people who live with “that bad bridge,” so they can determine how to fix that bad bridge — not people who have never been to that bridge. “We have to honor every gallon of gas that every American purchases” to make sure it goes back to pay for those highways. No earmarks, no tax increases.

5:30 Rep. Steve Southerland (R-FL): Americans want transportation bill that adds value. They want certainty.

5:28 Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY): I’m a former contractor, have employed hundreds of people, completed thousands of projects. Lots of people are wondering why they’re not back to work. These projects aren’t expenses, they’re investments in the future that pay for themselves. I’ve watched these extensions go on, knowing that prices have never been lower in this country. We’re past the time for extensions. This two-year bill will soon enough be a one-year bill. I’m tired of that.

5:25 Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN): Government doesn’t have enough money to meet infrastructure needs — we need private sector. Funding formulas need to be fair — Indiana is a “donor state.” [Untrue.]

5:22 Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY): Let’s not miss another construction season. There’s no perfect legislation, MAP-21 is good legislation. MAP-21 will save 1.8 million jobs and create another 1 million jobs [A-ha: hence the varying numbers.]

5:21 Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA): I laud merits of Senate bill but doesn’t neither bill provides long-term solution for how to pay for improvements to aging infrastructure.

5:17 Sen. Chuck Schumer has arrived. Says this bill is just what Americans want: jobs, infrastructure, and bipartisanship (with no fighting.) Hope example of Boxer and Inhofe will be the seam of this conference. Investing in infrastructure is a fundamental responsibility of government. Senate bill gives states tools and resources to provide “large legacy” for mass transit systems. Some of you don’t have a lot of transit in your districts. For us, mass transit is what highways are in other states. New York serves 2.6 billion trips a year on transit. We can’t do it without transit. We need help on mass transit. We will fight very, very hard for it. It’s as important to us as roads are to you.

5:16 Boswell: Let’s don’t have another bridge fall because we couldn’t do our work.

5:14 Rep. Leonard Boswell (R-IA): It’s time to fish or cut bait. Madame Chairman, could you bring an expert to tell us what Keystone really means? We all understand the jobs part. But what happens to finished product, gas at the pump? I don’t want something to happen in your district or mine – we all have a lot of deficient bridges. This country is built on compromise.

5:12 Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT): [Some comic relief:] I’m honored to address a few of my colleagues and so many Senate staffers today.

5:10 Rep Elijah Cummings (D-MD): We should begin by recommit ourselves to reinvesting in the value of our nation. I wish we in the House had been able to pass a bipartisan transportation bill. Senate’s MAP-21 must form basis of our discussion. I will oppose any provision that ask workers to be piggy bank when the rich haven’t been asked to contribute one penny.

5:06 Rep. Bill Schuster (R-PA), chair of Rail Subcommittee: Streamlining provisions are important, it takes average of 14-15 years to complete major construction project [anyone want to fact-check this?]. Unconscionable for me to tell people of my state we have to take this money and spend it on bike paths. It’s money that could save lives on roadways.

5:04 Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL): Nobody in this room, but lots of people in House talk about the Senate, but thank god for the Senate — they put forth a real bill. Chinese putting $350 billion into transit, House is trying to cut funding for transit for first time since Ronald Reagan put it in the Trust Fund. I support Amtrak 100 percent, we need to continue to invest in it.

5:00 Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): We’re going to have to abandon some of the “poison pills” like Keystone and extreme streamlining measures that undercut NEPA. Go through normal process for Keystone review. Appears we’re “all on the same page again — at least I hope we are” that transit stays in the trust fund. I hope we get this done and don’t have to pass another extension at the end of June.

4:57 Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) notes that there are three West Virginians on this committee (out of 47 members) [that's pretty remarkable]. Transportation bill, Keystone pipeline means jobs.

4:55 Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) arrived! We’re on cusp on giving states the certainty they need to make infrastructure investments. If we don’t pass a bill we risk bankrupting the trust fund. Given high stakes, no one in this room should put politics ahead of efforts to create 2-3 million jobs [fudging on those controversial numbers].

4:53 Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC): This bill feeds so many parts of U.S. economy. I have long list of most and least favorite parts of your bill, Sen. Boxer. But I’m not going to use few minutes I have to detail my druthers. I’m going to try practicing what I’ve been preaching: we simply must get a bill out of this conference committee. This is likely to be the only jobs bill to come out of the 112th Congress. This bill already incorporates a ton of compromises. There are going to have to be more.

4:49 Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), sponsor of GAS Act: We have opportunity to show Senate and House can come together to meet infrastructure needs of our great country. American people would be disappointed if this fell apart because of something like Keystone and coal ash. Only 60 miles of 1,700 mile pipeline have changed. No administration has ever treated coal ash as hazardous material. Both very popular.

4:49 Sens. Schumer, Menendez aren’t here — surprising, since they’re both big players on transportation.

4:46 Rep. John Duncan (R-TN), chair of House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit: This is most important jobs bill Congress deals with. In H.R. 7 we emphasized streamlining project delivery. We’ve talked about this for years but haven’t done much at all. A $500 million project that took 14 years to complete would see costs double because of delays. We must set hard deadlines for federal agencies to approve projects, delegate more authority to states.

4:43 Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL): People are hurting in the Gulf. Allow BP fine money — somewhere between $5-20 billion —  to go to oil spill trust fund and get doled out according to bipartisan formula.

4:41 Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR): Seven states will forgo 60,000 jobs this season because of temporary extensions. Can’t plan. If we successfully conclude this conference quickly, we can reinstate those jobs. Steel, manufacturing, transit jobs — not just construction.

4:40 Hoeven: In my state alone, pipeline would take 500 trucks a day off the road.

4:39 Hoeven: Keystone will reduce gas prices and dependence on foreign oil.

4:37 Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND): Supported House approach, five-year bill and expanded energy production. Hope that will happen in the future, but in the meantime this two-year bill is a good bill. Two important provisions: Keystone pipeline and provision for “recycling” coal ash. Both are integral to bipartisan bill.

4:35 Rep. Don Young (R-AK), former chair of T&I: Fifteen years’ delay in road construction is waste of money. Earmarks would have gotten this bill done. Transportation is something everyone should have an interest in. We’re neglecting our duty if we don’t establish a good transportation bill.

4:34 Johnson: “There is no Democrat or Republican bridge.” [Conference drinking game participants: Take a shot.]

4:31 Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX): Average Dallas commuter spent 45 hours stuck in traffic last year, costing them $924. A third of Texas transportation budget is spent on maintenance. Wants to make sure U.S. DOT has R&D funds they need. Need to invest in research for environmentally sustainable infrastructure.

4:28 Vitter: We can do it with no earmarks. His three priorities: 1) Keystone pipeline, 2) RESTORE Act, 3) keeping funding for maritime infrastructure (RAMP Act).

4:26 Sen. David Vitter (R-LA): During last recess, I bet all of us heard two themes from constituents: 1) big challenge is jobs, 2) please work together more effectively in Washington. Get beyond bitter partisanship. This conference committee is a test.

4:24: Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX): Supports RESTORE Act for Gulf Coast.

4:22 Durbin: This is the second Keystone pipeline. First goes through Illinois. They say if we pass this bill today, gas prices will go down tomorrow. Not true. Coal ash: We’ve got a ferry that drops 500 tons of coal ash in Lake Michigan every year. If you would like those 500 tons of coal ash in your state, please let us know what lake we can send them to.

4:22 Durbin: Groups that don’t even talk to each other — AFL-CIO and Chamber of Commerce — joined together to mobilize against House bill. “They hate your bill.”

4:20 Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL), Majority Whip: We eliminated Congressionally directed spending (earmarks) – 535 little engines that used to pull this bill across the finish line. We can’t even agree on what should come out of this conference committee. We have a bill. You have an extension of current law with a bunch of extra riders.

4:19 Boxer time-check: We have an hour and a half left if everybody sticks to the time. We’re doing well. (And have some coffee.) Down to three minutes per senator now that we’ve heard from the chairpeople.

4:17 Markey: House provision provides “sweeping environmental waivers on ALL transportation projects.” Arbitrary time limits and exemptions will make statute meaningless. NEPA process is not a barrier, it’s a shield protecting families from big government building roads without considering those living in the area.

4:14 Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Ranking Dem on Natural Resources Committee: Previous conferences succeeded by balancing transportation needs and quality of life considerations. Unfortunately, House provisions make achieving such balance more difficult. TransCanada re-applied last week for pipeline permit. State Department is committed to a thorough review of the permit. House provision would eliminate that review and all public input. Natural gas in pipeline would be exported out of U.S. anyway.

4:09 Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Commerce Committee Ranking Member: We’ve come to complete consensus on our committee on our part of this bill. Includes provisions for interstate motorcoach safety standards.

4:09 Hastings: Congress hasn’t done enough to expand drilling.

4:05 Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), chair of Natural Resources Committee: Reduce costly, overlapping environmental paperwork. It’s cheaper to build road if federal government stops requiring more miles of paperwork than asphalt. RESTORE Act would help Gulf states, create broad new spending programs. I’m sympathetic to impact of spill, but shouldn’t require ballooning federal bureaucracy with new permanent federal programs. Senate put in $1.4 billion in automatic spending for Land and Water Conservation Fund.

4:04 Rockefeller: Don’t mind going into conference without anything from the House, we’ll get to a better place.

4:02 Rockefeller: In amount of time it takes to text, if you’re driving on windy WV roads, you’ve gone “over a cliff or into a tree.” People die from that stuff.

4:00 Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Commerce Committee chair: We talk about safety as if it would happen naturally. You have to talk about it in legislation or else it won’t happen. Drunk driving, seat belt use. Did he just say “children are larger”?

3:59 Waxman: Hope GOP won’t hold nation’s transportation system hostage over these issues.

3:58 Waxman: Tennessee coal ash spill created $1.2 billion superfund cleanup site. Should not use “half-truths and scare tactics.” Also, “terrible” Ribble Act “eviscerating” NEPAmust be rejected.

3:55 Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), ranking Dem on Energy and Commerce: Senate transpo bill includes safety measures that will reduce risk of sudden acceleration, etc. Improves transparency. Requires child safety seat updates, motorcoach standards. House bill includes “extraneous and anti-environmental provisions” including “a legislative earmark” for Keystone pipeline. President has made clear he will not sign this. Coal ash provision also extraneous. Let EPA continue process of figuring out how to regulate coal ash.

3:53 Shelby supports RESTORE Act, included by House amendment, to help assist Gulf Coast states that were impacted by Deepwater Horizon oil spill. [This is popular legislation, a sweetener for Democrats among House amendments.]

3:50 Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking Republican on Banking Committee [jurisdiction over transit]: We eliminated all earmarks that were in reauthorization bill, allowing us to increase guaranteed formula funding for transit. We must institute system of greater accountability, real investment in maintaining aging public transportation infrastructure. State of good repair important, Senate bill puts it front and center.

3:50 Sen. Boxer calling on members in order of seniority.

3:48 Upton: Keystone pipeline belongs in final agreement. After all, it’s the “ultimate jobs and infrastructure project” and this is a jobs and infrastructure bill.

3:45 Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), Energy and Commerce Committee Chair: This bill will get economy moving. Vehicle safety: make sure NHTSA has a clear focus, no diversion from existing priorities. Supports House measure ensuring that harbor maintenance money go toward dredging — important for Great Lakes. Also, expedited approval for Keystone pipeline is important, so is coal ash deregulation. These make “perfect sense” in transportation bill. Coal ash is related to concrete, reclassification as hazardous waste would make road-building more expensive.

3:44 Johnson: I hope this conference doesn’t get bogged down with controversial issues that don’t relate to transportation.

3:42 Sen. Tim Johnson, Banking Committee Chair [has jurisdiction over transit]: Americans make 35 million trips on public transportation every weekday. MAP-21 will help transit agencies make backlogged repairs, reforms safety oversight.

3:41 Blumenauer: Support transit parity for commuters.

3:40 Blumenauer: Keep fix-it-first measure. Keep Buy America provisions, keep American spending in America.

3:39 Blumenauer: Preserve Cardin-Cochran amendment to keep local control over ever-popular enhancement programs, biking and walking, safety. Also, keep imperfect Senate NEPA provisions. Protect public’s ability to participate. House language would allow projects to go forward without any coordination with locals.

3:37 Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), bike champion, Ways and Means member: Every $1 billion spent on transportation –> 35,000 jobs. Let’s not get bogged down in “unrelated and divisive political projects” like Keystone. Senate bill is already a bipartisan compromise and we thank you for the work you’ve done. House bill was never even voted on.

3:36 Hatch notes support for Keystone XL pipeline, creates jobs, brings energy from a “friendly country.”

3:33 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Finance Committee Ranking Member: Short-term extension reduces ability to think long-term. Concerned Senate finance title is not “sustainable and predictable” path. “Searching between the couch cushions for loose change.” Says HTF should maintain “user-pays” principle. Users shouldn’t have to pay for “other fashionable programs that they do not use.”

3:31 Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), House Ways and Means Committee Chair: Highway programs must be sustainable. 1) Must take fiscally responsible route to infrastructure improvements, 2) More, not fewer, opportunities for job creation. First mention of Keystone pipeline so far: “If administration refuses to act, then Congress must.”

3:30 Baucus says his plan reduces the deficit by $10 billion over 10 years. Replenishes general fund for any amount transfered into highway trust fund. “This shorter bill is what we could afford.” Significant reforms like program consolidation, safety funding, national freight network, performance measures are included.

3:28 Sen. Baucus’ turn. Montanans sent him back with one clear priority: “jobs.” Double digit unemployment in western Montana. [Note: Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee and the EPW's subcommittee on transportation. The $12 billion pay-for has his stamp on it. He's supposedly good friends with Republican Rep. Dave Camp, also on the conference, and they're expected to hammer out the pay-for together.]

3:27 Rahall quippy soundbite: We cannot let our hard heads get in the way of the hard hats.

3:26 Rahall notes there are only 22 legislative days before June 30 deadline. Construction season has already started. Time for hiring is almost up. Give them certainty, not 90 days at a time. Let them know they can hire workers.

3:25 Rahall: 2 million construction and manufacturing workers are waiting for jobs. [Lots of different jobs numbers floating around here.]

3:24 Rahall, top Democrat on T&I: Confident we will “not botch this opportunity.” Congratulates the eight freshmen on the committee — says it’s an honor. [Note: lots of people are worried that these freshmen are very ideological deficit hawks, won't compromise on spending.]

3:23 Inhofe said he was the only Republican who came to Norm Mineta’s fundraisers when he was in the House because they agreed on infrastructure.

3:21 Inhofe: Tell conservative House members that the conservative position is to pass this thing. The most meaningful reform to conservatives is on enhancements. Two percent of total funding falls into “highway beautification, museums.” [Note: most of it actually goes to active transportation.] “That’s not a good program.”

3:20 Inhofe’s turn: People said there’s no way you’re going to get a bill in an election year. We fooled ‘em — we did it.

3:19 Mica says “do more with less.” I think we should all take a shot every time someone says that.

3:18 Mica: We’re not going to raise taxes. Anyone who wants to raise taxes, you’re on the wrong conference committee. We’re not going to have earmarks. We’re not going to add red tape. “Shovel-ready” is a national joke. People say if the federal government gets involved, the project takes 2-3 times as long, costs 3-4 times as much. That’s not the way to go.

3:17 Mica: Focus on what’s in the transportation bill. Has to include serious reforms. “Can’t just throw money at problems — they tried that in the stimulus bill.” Only seven percent of stimulus was infrastructure.

3:16 Mica regrets that the administration opted to “cut Oberstar’s legs out from underneath him” when he tried to pass a six-year bill.

3:14 Boxer turns it over to Mica. Mica recalls starting listening sessions in Beckley, WV and hearing from stakeholders.

3:13 Boxer: we can do it because MAP-21 got 74 votes. Expanded TIFIA program leverages money 30 to 1. It’s a real reform bill, consolidates 90 highway programs to 30.

3:11 Boxer shows picture of Super Bowl stadium, says we have twelve times that many unemployed construction workers.

3:11 Boxer: uncertainty causes construction businesses to rent, not buy, equipment, placing further drag on economy.

3:10 Boxer directs her remarks to Sen. Chuck Schumer. Says we have opportunity to create or save 3 million jobs (the number usually quoted is 1.8 million).

3:08 Boxer nominated Mica as vice-chair. Lays out work of the committee, that it has to work without delay to get conference report passed in time.

3:06 Inhofe seconds Boxer’s nomination. Says that he’s one of the most conservative members of the Senate but is a “big spender” when it comes to national security and infrastructure.

3:06 House and Senate take turns chairing the conference. Last one chaired by Rep. Don Young. It’s the Senate’s turn. Mica is speaking now, nominating Barbara Boxer.

3:04 Hasn’t started yet. You can watch it online at http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/ or get the Cliff’s notes here.

2:48: Things will be getting underway shortly.

It’s unusual for conferences to meet in public, and leaders have indicated that this won’t be the only meeting they have in front of television cameras. Still, the sausage-making always happens behind closed doors. Here’s what we’ll be looking for as things get underway today:

Could the transportation bill be Rep. John Mica's downfall? Photo: Roll Call

Will anything come of it? “The first day will tell you exactly nothing,” Scott Slesinger, NRDC’s director of legislative affairs, told reporters last week. “You’ll walk out of there convinced that there’s no way they’re going to do a bill.”

In fact, the conventional wisdom right now is that this whole process will end in yet another extension, probably until the lame-duck session after the November election. But this conference committee could lay the groundwork for that bill. Both parties want to get a bill done, but Republican leaders are worried that their base will revolt at the sight of them negotiating with Democrats. So, in public they’ll be all hard-line rhetoric and uncompromising conservatism, and when the cameras are off they’ll horse-trade.

How strong is the Senate’s hand? The House has pretty limited leverage in this process because they didn’t pass a real transportation bill. The Senate is bringing to conference a bill that got a remarkable vote of confidence from senators across the political spectrum, and “the House sent over beach ball,” according to NRDC’s David Goldston.

“The House can’t figure out how to get even its own members together so they send these partial things over to the Senate to cause trouble,” said Goldston, “while the Senate has a bill that’s been passed by about three-quarters of the members of the Senate and was written by [Senators Barbara] Boxer and [James] Inhofe. The fact that Boxer and Inhofe were able to write a bill together is one of the least-appreciated stories of this Congress. So, peace breaks out but people say, ‘We’d rather continue to have war.’ That’s unfortunate.”

How significant are the “tweaks” the House is trying to make to the Senate bill? The amendments the House has put forward don’t have much to do with transportation but they sure could hold up this bill. Amendments to eviscerate the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and de-regulate coal ash are controversial, but nothing will stir up as much trouble as the provision to force approval of the Keystone pipeline. The president has already vowed to veto any bill with such a provision, so the House knows that its insistence on this is just another way to kill the transportation reauthorization.

Meanwhile, the differences between the unpassed House proposal and the Senate bill are stark. The Senate breaks the commitment to dedicated bike/ped funding but hands more power over air quality funds to localities (rather than states), meaning more of that money will probably go to bike/ped. The Senate includes more performance measures, including for state of good repair. The House sticks to old formulas. The Senate does enough damage to NEPA by doling out penalties for missed environmental review deadlines, but that’s nothing compared to the House’s position that a missed deadline triggers an automatic approval. The Senate, admittedly, funds its bill with some deficit spending, while the House proceeds with the fiction that its proposal can be paid for with oil drilling.

Technically, none of this is up for consideration in the conference, since it’s not included in the bill the House passed and sent to conference. But House Transportation Chair John Mica has told Politico he’ll push to include as much policy from the original five-year House bill as he can. “You can do anything in conference,” he said.

If this goes to the lame duck, is it even worth it to pass the Senate bill? People refer to the Senate’s legislation as a “two-year” bill because it would have been, if it had been passed last September. But the end date is fixed at September 2013, and isn’t being pushed back along with the start date. So, if it’s passed in December, it’ll only be a 10-month bill.

Still, advocates say the Senate bill includes some worthwhile policy changes that would be an important basis for the next round. Plus, success breeds success in Washington. Proving that you can pass a bill — even a short bill — improves your odds of passing the next one.

Even if you see a 10-month bill as nothing but a glorified extension, at least it’s a 10-month extension — longer than any that we’ve gotten in the (almost) three years since the last bill expired.

Will Senate Republicans stand by their bill? So far, they’ve been pretty quiet. Inhofe and top Banking Committee Republican Richard Shelby both say the Senate has passed a good bill and they plan to defend it. Still, they both support the Keystone pipeline, so it’s unclear how this will shake out.

Given the amount of difficult compromise that happened to get a consensus bill passed in the Senate, it seems everyone there is serious about passing this legislation, meaning they might not go along with the House’s provisions, even if they agree with them, because they know it could sink the whole enterprise. Last summer, when Senate Republicans kept trying to kill bike/ped, Inhofe consistently voted against their attempts because he was committed to using a correct process.

Will House Republicans finally unite behind the conference report? Once all is said and done, if the conference committee does manage to agree on a bill through September 2013, would the House agree to it? After all, conference isn’t the final stage — each chamber still needs to approve the work of the conference committee.

Politico notes that Senate Democrats named some heavyweights to the conference committee while House leadership is taking a backseat. Still, some members speculate that GOP leaders will need to get involved at some point to whip enough support for the bill.

Will Mica and Boehner survive this? While reports of Mica’s demise turned out to be “greatly exaggerated,” experts say the failure to pass a substantive bill will almost certainly cost him his committee chairmanship — if he’s even re-elected to Congress. And Mica might not be the only casualty of the transportation bill debacle. House Speaker John Boehner’s lieutenant, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, is rumored to be planning a coup d’etat. While the two have tried to make nice in public of late, the tension between the two of them has led to a less united party than usual. Cantor could use Boehner’s failures to get the transportation bill through his own party as a reason to topple him.

Image: Systemic Failure

Network blog Systemic Failure recently looked at how the Federal Railroad Administration is about to spend a staggering sum to ensure that its new railcars are made with materials sourced from America. Rail in the United States will be worse for it:

The FRA is soliciting bids for a $551 million contract for 130 bi-level railcars. As a condition for the contract, the railcars must be manufactured entirely with American steel and components. If you do the math, that comes to 4.2 million dollars each – double the global market price for a bi-level car.

In other words, the FRA is pissing away a quarter billion dollars. Imagine all the projects that might have been done with $250 million. Imagine all the jobs that might have been created with that money. I’m talking real jobs — not bureaucrats enforcing Made-in-America rules. Jobs like installing new PTC signaling, repairing bridges, or expanding the transit network. You know, things that have tangible benefit to riders.

Sorry, but domestic passenger rail manufacturing is gone. And subsidizing obsolete FRA-compliant rolling stock isn’t the way to revitalize it.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Greater Greater Washington reports on how the suburb of White Flint is making itself more walkable and sustainable. M-bike.org peeks in on Detroiters who are carfree by choice. And The Political Environment shares the disappointing news that US DOT has thrown its support behind the billion-dollar-plus Zoo Interchange in Wisconsin — a boondoggle if there ever was one.