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

"Unless the U.S. Senate passes" the transit
operating legislation, the union’s Mike Hall wrote in a Friday
blog post, "working families who count on public transportation
systems in
communities across the country will face even more severe fare
increases and service cuts and transit workers are looking at further
layoffs."

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

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

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

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

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

"Americans want to get outdoors … they want
opportunities to get out of congestion," LaHood told the assembled
cyclists, some of whom joined him in donning brightly colored bike
lapel pins to signify support for the Congressional Bike Caucus.

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

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

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

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

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

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) (Photo: 2.bp.blogspot.com)

Offered by Reps. Ed Towns (D-NY) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL), the
amendment would require makers of hybrid and electric cars, which often
produce little to no sound when traveling at low speeds, to include an
alert noise as a precaution for nearby pedestrians and cyclists.

The silent-cars amendment tracks with conclusions reached
this month by automakers and advocates for the blind, many of whom
were long concerned about already-impaired pedestrians’ ability to guard
against the presence of a semi-silent oncoming vehicle.

A September study [PDF]
conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found
that the crash risk to pedestrians from cars traveling at low speeds was
twice as high for hybrids as for combustion-engine models. The study
also concluded that the likelihood of crashes at road intersections
involving cyclists were "significantly higher" for hybrids than for
conventionally powered cars.

“As the popularity of hybrid and green cars continues
to grow, the audibility of these vehicles at low speeds poses serious
safety
concerns,” Towns said in a statement on his and Stearns’ proposal. The
broader auto-safety bill is expected to come to a vote in the full House
later this year.

(Chart:
University of Vermont Transportation Research Center)

The
success of state-level plans to increase gas taxes is tied to the
media’s portrayal of the proposals in question, with narratives tied to
"crumbling infrastructure" and "economic progress" showing more success
than those emphasizing long-term transportation budget gaps, according
to a new report released by the University of Vermont’s Transportation
Research Center (TRC).

The TRC report examined six states where lawmakers debated raising
gas taxes to close infrastructure budget gaps between 2006 and 2009.
Three of the states ultimately approved gas tax increases (Oregon,
Minnesota, and Vermont) — two of them over the opposition of the
governor, as seen in the third column of the above chart — and three of
the state (Massachusetts, Idaho, and New Hampshire) nixed the proposed
tax increases.

While acknowledging that "there are many possible explanations for
the success and failure of gasoline tax increases at the state level,"
TRC researcher Richard Watts attempted to categorize the "frames" used
to depict the proposals in local media as well as the Associated Press
wire service.

Watts broke down the most popular media narratives by whether they
emphasized arguments made by supporters or opponents of the proposed tax
hikes. The most common so-called "pro frames" focused on each state’s
decaying infrastructure, which would be in line for a boost thanks to
new gas tax revenues; the economic upside of improving travel times and
creating jobs by pursuing more gas tax-funded repair projects; and the
long-term benefits of solving persistent budget crises by raising fuel
fees.

Watts also marked off three frequently used "anti frames": broad
opposition to tax increases of any kind; a perceived public preference
for cutting other government spending before resorting to raising taxes;
and the economic downside of raising fuel charges during a recession.

The report did not show an across-the-board correlation between
positive portrayals of higher gas taxes and the ultimate passage of
state-level proposals to that effect. As seen in the above chart, media
coverage in five out of the six states studied featured a majority of
"pro frames," yet two of those states failed to act on gas tax
legislation.

But the nature of the media narratives used did appear to have an
effect on the success of state-level tax increases. From Watts’ report:

In Vermont and Minnesota, crumbling infrastructure
comprised the majority of the pro-gas tax frames. This is a powerful
frame that carries images of collapsing bridges, aging and deteriorating
roadways, threats to physical health and a system in dire jeopardy. …

In Massachusetts and Idaho the dominant pro-gas tax frame was
long-term solution – displayed about 75 percent of total pro-gas tax
frames. This frame emphasized funding and financial mechanisms and lacks
the imagery of crumbling infrastructure. In both states the debate in
the news discourse became about transportation system funding, not the
deteriorating system.

Another wild card, according to Watts’ research, was the "media
standing" of the public figures making pro- or anti-gas tax arguments.
In Massachusetts, for example, he found insufficient data to explain the
source of the media’s emphasis on the more wonkish "long-term solution"
frame — whether it was also the dominant narrative of Gov. Deval
Patrick (D), a tax-hike supporter, or whether it dominated the debate
for other reasons.

Nonetheless, the report could provide food for thought for House
transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), as his
party’s resistance to a federal gas tax increase continues to force
a challenging search for alternative transport financing tactics.

A private firm recently signed a deal with New Orleans officials to help run the city's streetcars, seen above. (Photo: NYT)

Few definitive answers to those questions were on offer today at a transit panel sponsored by the Mobility Choice coalition, which allies members of conservative-leaning think tanks with a handful of environmental advocates and urbanists -- but the discussion yielded some provocative evidence of the fault lines between public and private operators.

Principally sponsored by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), the group describes itself as adopting "a fiscally responsible, free market oriented approach to expanding competition among transportation modes for the purpose of reducing oil's strategic value."

American Bus Association (ABA) Chairman James Jalbert, whose group represents private bus and motorcoach companies, lamented that the U.S. DOT's implementation of its $10.5 billion high-speed rail program -- which is expected to receive billions more in federal funding in the coming years -- did not envision a role for private-sector firms that already provide inter-city service.

"A good-quality system that could be included in a rail project is now going to be run over by that rail project," said Jalbert, also the president New Hampshire-based bus company C&J. "We want to be part of the solution, but we need to be invited to the party."

Integrating private bus operators into proposed passenger rail projects has to start at the state level, where officials make the call on whether and how to pursue federal bullet-train money, Jalbert added. He described a potentially successful partnership between public inter-city rail and private bus companies as a shared scheduling system, where passengers could purchase tickets for rail during peak hours but an equivalent bus journey during off-peak times, when operating a motorcoach could be more efficient.

Tom JeBran, ABA vice chairman and president of Trans-Bridge Lines in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, went further than his private-sector cohort in suggesting that public transit agencies receive an unfair advantage, thanks to their operating subsidies and exemption from the federal gas tax.

"The only way I'd support" raising fuel taxes and adding new interstate tolls to pay for nationwide transport improvements, JeBran said, would be if both private and public transit operators got an exemption from those new charges.

Robert Padgette of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the transit industry's leading D.C. trade group, fired back at JeBran's depiction of government subsidies that go only to public operators. The U.S. DOT's Section 5311 grants, Padgette noted, do make taxpayer funds available to smaller, private inter-city bus companies.

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-VA), left, in the "congressional ride" during March's National Bike Summit. (Photo: bikeleague via Flickr)

GOP Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michael McCaul (TX), Jack Kingston (VA), and Steven LaTourette (OH) signed on to the letter, which was sent to LaHood late yesterday in advance of today's Bike to Work Day events in the capital.

Referencing LaHood's March policy statement urging state and local transportation planners to put cyclists and pedestrians on the same footing as drivers in designing new infrastructure, the lawmakers wrote:

We recognize, and appreciate, that your statement was not about providing equal amounts of funding to all forms of transportation, or prioritizing bicycling and walking over other transportation modes such as trucking, freight or public transit. Instead, your commitment to consider all modes clarified that to give citizens a choice, rather than forcing them into their car, we must make sure that bicycling and walking are as safe and convenient as other modes.

LaTourette's endorsement of that federal embrace of bicycling and pedestrian access is particularly notable. He initially echoed the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Trucking Association in chiding LaHood for the non-binding bike-ped statement, wondering "what job is going to be created" by bike lanes before later walking back his remarks.

A complete copy of the letter, also signed by House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), is available after the jump.

Dear Secretary LaHood:

We would like to thank you for the Department of Transportation’s release of the “Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation, Regulations, and Recommendations” announced on March 15. We support the policy statement’s declaration that bicycling and walking are efficient modes of transportation that have an important positive impact on our communities.

We were pleased to see the policy statement’s acknowledgment of bicycling and walking as an important part of the transportation system. Bicycling and walking serve as cost-effective solutions to many of the serious issues facing our transportation system, including traffic congestion, funding concerns and air pollution. Moreover, as 40 percent of trips taken in our country are two miles or less, bicycling and walking should play an important role in providing transportation options in our small towns, suburbs and cities.

We recognize, and appreciate, that your statement was not about providing equal amounts of funding to all forms of transportation, or prioritizing bicycling and walking over other transportation modes such as trucking, freight or public transit. Instead, your commitment to consider all modes clarified that to give citizens a choice, rather than forcing them into their car, we must make sure that bicycling and walking are as safe and convenient as other modes.

We also appreciate the recognition of bicycling and walking as useful tools to address many other issues facing our nation such as increased oil consumption, air pollution, and our growing national debt. Investments in bicycling and walking have been shown to bring significant economic development to communities across the country, and to help families lower their own transportation costs. We believe that communities should be able to move forward with projects they feel are most advantageous to them, including bicycle facilities and pedestrian infrastructure.

We hope to continue to see bicycling and walking as a central part of your livability initiative. Thank you for all of your hard work on this issue. We look forward to working with you in the future.

Traffic brings with it billions of
dollars in "hidden health costs," according to the APTA. (Photo: NYT)

The
APHA’s report (available for download here) echoes
many of the policy recommendations issued
by the Centers for Disease Control last month: stronger incentives
to expand bicycle and pedestrian networks, as well as more frequent
measurement of the health impacts of new transport projects.

But the APHA, a trade association representing public health
workers, went further than the government by adding up the estimated
costs imposed by the absence of any mandatory evaluation of the health
consequences of transportation decisions.

Citing U.S. DOT and American Automobile Association studies,
respectively, the APHA pegged the annual price of congested roads at
between $50 billion and $80 billion, with the health toll of traffic
crashes — including the treatment of fatalities, the resulting court
costs, and lost wages — reaching $180 billion per year.

The majority of those bills are paid indirectly by the
transportation system users they affect, not factored in advance into
local planning, as the APHA writes:

The federal government does not require a consistent
methodology for environmental impact analysis, transportation modeling,
or cost-benefit analysis for agencies seeking federal highway funding —
and while this approach allows agencies to tailor analyses to fit their
needs, itmakes it impossible to compare potential project effectiveness
at a national level. It also  means that health impacts, costs and
benefits are often left off the table when projects are being
considered.

What can be done to build those health risks into the calculus that
determines where roads get built, bridges fixed, and crosswalks
painted? The APHA offers San Francisco, where health officials used
economic modeling to weigh the likely pedestrian injury rates caused by
five alternative development plans, as an example of effective local
analysis of transportation’s effect on public health.

But the APHA report underscores the difficulty of achieving a
broader shift without Congress requiring a stronger emphasis on
transport policies that tangibly improve Americans’ health. In addition
to endorsing the concept of national transportation objectives — which has
won some Democratic support but sparked
resistance from state DOTs — the group’s new report urges that
those new federal standards "allocate more funds to projects and efforts
that support healthy communities and active transportation."

Sens.
Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John Kerry (D-MA), right, with
onetime climate bill cosponsor Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at left. (Photo: CSM)

American
Public Transportation Association (APTA) chief William
Millar told reporters that while the local transit agencies he
represents are "very supportive
of legislation to address climate change and energy issues," the Senate
bill’s diversion of all but about
$6 billion of its fuel revenues for purposes unrelated to
transportation is a matter of serious concern.

"This is one of those cases where we really can’t even talk about
the merits of any
portion of the bill because the fundamental position is flawed," Millar
said.

Referring to the legislation’s promise of funding for the clean
transport and land-use grants known as "CLEAN
TEA" and TIGER,
he added, "Many of those are very good ideas … but you can’t make those
ideas work if there’s no significant funding to make them work, and
this bill would aggravate the funding situation for public transit."

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of
State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), was more direct in
outlining where state DOTs want to see the Senate climate bill’s fuel
revenues directed. "Channel[ing] every dollar through the highway trust
fund," he said, would help the industry break through a congressional
stalemate and win passage of a new six-year federal transport bill.

Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors, and
Pete Ruane, president of the American Road and Transportation Builders
Association, echoed Horsley’s interpretation of the new fuel fees in the
climate bill — which are imposed on oil companies and refiners but are
likely to be passed along through higher gas prices — as a de
facto "user fee" on drivers.

The climate proposal, Ruane said, does "nothing more than finance a
lot of goals, which are enviable in part, on the backs of
transportation users."

It remains to be seen whether the transportation industry’s
combative stance against the partial diversion of the bill’s
transportation revenue, billed as a "call for a rewrite" of the climate
legislation, will help force senators into restructuring the measure.
Ruane said he "like[s] the odds" facing the four groups.

But a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said that APTA, AASHTO,
and 25 other industry groups mis-estimated the amount of revenue set
aside for transportation in a letter outlining their concerns that was
sent today to Kerry and his chief climate bill co-sponsor, Sen. Joseph
Lieberman (I-CT).

“Let’s get the facts
straight," Kerry spokesman Whitney Smith said via email. "This bill
invests more than $6 billion annually in transportation
infrastructure, which is more than any other comprehensive energy and
climate
bill and more than twice what’s claimed in this letter. In effect, the
letter
advocates a policy that would accelerate emissions from the
transportation
sector and increase our dependence on foreign oil. That’s not good for
anyone,
especially consumers."

One congressional source was befuddled by APTA’s move to "bit[e]
the hand that feeds them" by criticizing a climate bill that stands to
give broad, lasting benefits to rail and bus systems.

“Perhaps these groups are confused about the purpose of the climate
bill: It’s to reduce emissions, not increase them," the source told
Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "The Kerry-Lieberman bill invests more money
in transportation than any of the previous climate bills. Instead of
working constructively to increase that investment, they are biting the
hand that feeds them. Why is APTA advocating for a strategy that will
decrease the amount of climate money going to transit? Transit makes out
like a bandit in the Kerry-Lieberman bill.”

APTA’s alignment with AASHTO and the construction industry groups
marks a split of sorts from the Transportation for America (T4A) infrastructure reform coalition,
which has
praised the upper-chamber climate bill’s focus on investing in
clean transport projects while taking no official position on the
legislation as a whole.

The Senate climate plan provides "a new source of revenue" for
transportation, T4A spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview. "This
is not a gas tax, and it’s not conceived of as a supplement to the
highway trust fund, for whatever the business-as-usual, run-of-the-mill
highway trust fund projects are."

How big would that new source of transportation revenue be,
relative to the total amount raised by the Senate climate bill’s new
fuel fees? APTA and AASHTO claim in their letter that more than
three-quarters of total fuel fees would be used for non-infrastructure
purposes:

In 2013, fees from on-road fuel consumption [under the
climate proposal] would generate at least $19.5 billion.  Instead of
returning revenue from these fees to improving the transportation
system, the bill diverts at least 77 percent of the funds away from
transportation infrastructure investment. As carbon prices increase, the
bill diverts as much as 91 percent of fuel revenues.  Of particular
concern, the bill limits new investment in the Highway Trust Fund to
$2.5 billion per year, far below the amount the bill raises from system
users. 

As Kerry’s office pointed out, however, the industry groups’ math
appears to lowball the amount of funding set aside for transportation.
The 77 percent estimate would yield an annual pot of less than $4
billion, while Kerry and Lieberman have estimated that transport would
receive upwards of $6 billion during the first several years after their
legislation takes effect.

(ed. note. This post was updated to add comment from Kerry’s
office.)

A "transit village" in the San
Francisco area, cited by the Ford Foundation as an example of projects
eligible for its new grants. (Photo: Bay Area MTC)

The foundation’s president, Luis Ubiñas, revealed the move in a
speech to local community leaders gathered at the White House to discuss
the future of the nation’s once auto-dominant cities.

Ubiñas cited several examples of existing transit and urban
development projects that would be good candidates for the foundation’s
five-year grant program. The Bay Area’s residential-commercial "transit
villages," Detroit’s public-private M1
light rail plan, and New Orleans’ push
to rebuild its Claiborne Avenue corridor topped the list.

“When we look at metro regions and see pockets of serious
unemployment
but also pockets of employment opportunity, and disjointed transit
systems that
fail to connect people to the services they need and the jobs they seek,
it’s clear that a different approach is needed,” Pablo J. Farías, a vice
president at the foundation, said in a statement on the grants.

The foundation was established
in 1936 with an initial gift from Edsel Ford, son of the automaker
Henry Ford, and managed by members of the Ford family for several
decades after its founding.

Does the
Senate climate bill include a user fee? That depends on how the term is
defined. (Photo: Pop
and Politics)

The central complaint raised by
mainstream transport players boils down to, as American Association of
State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) executive director
John Horsley put it in
a statement, the Senate bill’s "preemption" of user-fee revenue
that historically has gone into the nation’s dwindling highway trust
fund.

"Congress can ill-afford to consider any legislation that" siphons
off money from the trust fund, which has required more than $30 billion
in replenishment from the general Treasury over the past 18 months,
Horsley said.

Stephen Sandherr, chief of the Associated General Contractors — a
backer of the
Senate effort to bar the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from
regulating greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of congressional
action — echoed that sentiment in his
own statement on the upper-chamber climate proposal.

"[B]y taking funds raised through the proposal’s new transportation
fees
and committing all but a small percentage to unrelated spending, the
legislation leaves our aging and inefficient roads, airways and transit
systems vastly underfunded," Sandherr said.

But does the Senate climate bill impose a user fee on
transportation fuel consumers? The text of the measure specifically
requires "each refined [fuel] product provider" to purchase emissions
permits from the EPA on a quarterly basis at a fixed price, with no
permit trading allowed. Horsley’s depiction of those charges as a "user
fee" relies on the considerable likelihood that oil companies and
refiners would pass on the cost of those emissions permits to consumers
in the form of higher gas prices.

In the meantime, how much of the revenue raised by the bill’s new
fuel permits would infrastructure receive?

The American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimated
last week that the Senate plan would raise $20 billion from the new
charges on oil producers and refiners, with about $6.25 billion of that
divided into equal parts — one-third for the highway trust fund,
one-third for competitive federal grants similar to the TIGER
program, and one-third for local land use projects, in the style of
the so-called "CLEAN
TEA" proposal.

(Photo: AmericaJR.com)

The latest salvo in the White House’s drive to rein in auto
dealers, whose loans to car buyers account for an estimated
$850 billion in outstanding American debt, came late yesterday in a
letter to senators from Army Secretary John McHugh.

"Though the Army does educate our soldiers about buying cars in our
normal financial education curriculum, the fact remains that junior
enlisted soldiers — many of whom are drawing a paycheck for the first
time in their lives and are inexperienced in financial matters — remain
an easy target for dishonest brokers," McHugh wrote.

The warning from McHugh, a former Republican member of Congress,
came in the wake of a
personal statement from Obama urging senators to reject any
consumer carve-out for auto dealers. The upper chamber could vote as
soon as today on an amendment offered by Sen. Sam
Brownback (R-KS) that would officially exempt car dealers from the
bill’s new consumer rules.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman
Chris Dodd (D-CT) joined the chorus of critics last night in a floor
speech, telling colleagues that the bulk of car dealers do not “engage
in financing that cause problems … but we
don’t write laws for the many; we write laws for the few."

Villaraigosa (r.) with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another co-chief of Building America's Future. (Photo: Getty)

Rendell and Villaraigosa came to the Capitol for a visit to the House Ways and Means Committee's revenue panel, which faces the challenging task of finding a workable financing mechanism for long-term federal transportation legislation.

Villaraigosa used his high-profile push for federal assistance with his city's "30/10" transit plan, which would expedite construction of 13 rail and rapid bus projects using proceeds from a voter-approved sales tax, to urge lawmakers' support for an NIB.

"We're not only arguing for infrastructure investment on the federal level," he said. "We're saying ... at a time of spiraling deficits, we've got to encourage local governments to put up their own money. We have done that [in L.A.]."

Rendell, who has used his role as co-chairman of the advocacy group Building America's Future to amass support for an NIB, quoted GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe's (OK) support for federal transport spending in a bid to depict infrastructure as a uniquely bipartisan issue.

"The American people are way ahead of us," Rendell told Ways and Means members. "Infrastructure is something they can touch, they can see, they can experience ... This is easier, in terms of public perception, than anybody thinks."

But even as the duo focused on the NIB -- which Rendell and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) agreed should be placed outside the U.S. DOT, counter to the White House's proposal -- the specter of the federal gas tax hung over the room. One day after conservatives began using anti-gas tax arguments in a bid to derail the new Senate climate bill, lawmakers prodded Rendell and Villaraigosa to share their views on the subject.

Rendell, specifying that he was "not speaking for" his advocacy group, endorsed a gas tax increase. Villaraigosa followed, confidently: "I unequivocally support an increase in the gas tax ... if America is going to continue to maintain its highways and infrastructure, it's crucial."

Few Democrats on the Ways and Means panel, however, were prepared to echo their colleagues from the state and local levels.

"I think we'd have a hard time passing a gas tax increase in the Democratic delegation [and] a hard time passing it in the Pennsylvania delegation," Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) told Rendell after the governor cited surveys that show the majority of the public incorrectly believes the tax is already indexed for inflation. "I just think these polls may not be as telling as we'd like to think."

A middle-ground approach was offered by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who reminded fellow House members that "there is no reason we have to raise a gas tax, this year or next year," to pay for sustained new federal transport investment. "As long as we establish a revenue path going forward within a 10-year budget score, we can leverage it."

Women- and minority-owned companies would have an easier
time winning federal transportation contracts under a new rule released
by the Obama administration today, which comes in the wake of complaints
from social-equity advocates that such firms had received
just 2 percent of infrastructure contracts awarded under last
year’s economic stimulus law.

(Photo: CA
DOT)

The new rule would increase to $1.3 million the maximum owner’s net
worth required to classify a company as a "disadvantaged business
enterprises" (DBE), qualifying it for federal assistance in winning
contracts on the state and local level. Under the existing program,
owners of DBEs were required to earn $750,000 or less per year, an
income level that was last adjusted 20 years ago.

State DOTs also would face stronger monitoring requirements to
ensure their DBE hiring targets are met, according to a release from
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s office.

The new rule asks states to monitor transport contractors to ensure
their promises to use DBE subcontractors are kept, and states that fail
to meet DBE hiring goals would have to submit a remedy to Washington
that would increase deals with women- and minority-owned firms.

Finally, the rule would eliminate the need for businesses to obtain
DBE status in multiple states, requiring one state DOT to accept
another’s DBE certification "unless it found good reason not to," the
U.S. DOT stated.

LaHood launched
a $20 million bonding program last year, as well as a task force to
examine strategies for increasing women- and minority-owned contractors’
presence in the transport work force. But a February
report that DBEs had won less than $1 billion in business from the
stimulus law’s $48 billion infrastructure pot fueled more contention
over access.

The new rule is now in a preliminary format, with public comments
accepted by the U.S. DOT until July.

A speed-camera image of the car belonging to Thomas Destories, accused last year of killing a speed camera worker. (Photo: Phx. New Times)

The end of the speed-limit enforcement program, first reported by the Arizona Republic, came after months of stinging criticism from conservative groups that viewed the cameras as an violation of drivers' rights. Arizona drivers also have mounted their own rebellions against the speed cameras, with one donning a monkey mask to escape liability and others blocking the lenses with Silly String, Post-Its, or other items.

The cameras are programmed to only notice drivers who exceed posted speed limits by more than 10 miles per hour, with some geared to monitor red-light infractions and illegal turns. The fines for violators exceed $150, although the Department of Public Safety canceled any ticket that was not hand-delivered to drivers within 120 days.

Brewer's Democratic predecessor as governor, now-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, started the enforcement camera program in 2008. Napolitano touted its road safety benefits in explaining her move, describing the state's dwindling coffers as a secondary concern.

"[T]he plain fact of the matter is from a public safety perspective, that the photo radar has proven to be a technology that actually helps road safety and we would have proposed this irrespective of the downturn in revenue numbers," she told the AP at the time.

But the notion that the cameras were employed first and foremost as a money-maker for the state proved enduring. As the Republic reported yesterday:

Sen. Patty
Murray (D-WA), center, talks to Transport Secretary Ray LaHood, at left.
(Photo: WS DOT via Flickr)

Sen.
Patty Murray (D-WA), chairman of the upper chamber’s transportation
spending panel, praised the mission of the sustainability office but
told LaHood she has "concerns about" the Obama administration’s pitch to
send $200 million in Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) funding to
the effort next year.

"I also have questions about how these proposals from [U.S.] DOT
fit into our
larger debate over" paying for the next long-term federal
transportation bill, Murray said.

Murray’s measured assessment of the new alliance between LaHood,
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) focused on how federal officials
would define the concept of "sustainability" as they determined how to
dole out grants to local development plans.

But her Republican counterpart on the spending panel, Sen. Kit Bond
(MO), took a harder line in challenging LaHood on the administration’s
ability to positively influence on-the-ground urban and rural planning.

"I’m not as confident [as others] that trusting federal
decision-makers in Washington to lead the process, to tell communities
how they should grow, is the right way to go," Bond said, tangling with
LaHood as he aligned with a road construction industry group that
criticized the administration’s sustainability budget.

Sending that $200 million from highways — about one-two-hundredth
of the FHWA’s annual budget — to the sustainable communities office
"may reflect a view that we want to get rid of auto transportation,"
Bond said.

"The idea we’re giving up on [roads] or don’t care about the
highways is nonsense," LaHood shot back. "People want other
alternatives. We have a state-of-the-art interstate system. If people
need more capacity, they can tell us that."

Bond’s reply was equally charged: "I’m telling you that."

Murray and Bond’s panel is charged with translating the White House
budget request into annual spending legislation for the U.S. DOT and
HUD. Congress ultimately
approved the administration’s proposed $150 million in
sustainability grants last year, but this year’s higher funding pitch
could face a tougher path to passage amid the lack of progress on a new
six-year federal transport bill.

Still, that continued reliance on extensions of existing
transportation law — which have necessitated a transfer of more than
$30 billion from the general Treasury to the highway trust fund since
2008 — gave LaHood ammunition against Bond and Murray’s complaint that
road users would be ceding that $200 million in highway money to the
sustainability office.

When lawmakers pay for transport programs from the general
Treasury, LaHood said, "part of that money comes … from all
the taxpayers — who, in some instances, want something other than
roads. I have to put that on the record."

A sign
advertising "spring water" coffee in Boston, where a state of emergency
was declared last weekend following a water main burst. (Photo: AP/Globe)

As
the Washington Post reports
today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) quietly released a
new policy last month that tells state officials to use their $3
billion-plus in annual federal water grants to shore up creaky pipes
before serving new housing developments on the outer edges of urban
areas.

From the Post’s piece:

The new guidance arguably arrives five years too late –
after a
home building boom that swallowed up vast swaths of land. But building
will eventually resume, and EPA officials say the leverage of the
federal funding … could coax states toward a more sustainable form of
development. With so many cities contending with aging water pipes and
sewer lines, officials say, it makes most sense to address those needs
first.

The EPA’s announcement was met with criticism from the home
building industry and state water supervisors who do not believe their
mandate should include preventing unsustainable growth.

But amid multiple ominous signs about the health of the nation’s
water systems — a burst
pipe that left millions of Bostonians without usable faucet water,
and a
long-term deficit of about $500 billion in state water funds — a
show of effectiveness for "fix-it-first" rules could strengthen the case
for applying them to transportation projects in the future.

If they
build it, will people come? An early rendering of California’s planned
high-speed rail line. (Photo: Inhabitat)

In
a briefing
yesterday sponsored by the Environmental Institute and the American
Public Transportation Association (APTA), rail experts walked a fine
line between espousing the benefits of high-speed train service and
warning of the pitfalls that could neutralize the effect of the 2009
stimulus law’s $8 billion down payment on new rail projects.

"Absent a strong government partnership, we’re not going to have
high-speed rail in this country," said Kevin Brubaker, deputy director
of the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

Brubaker added that the biggest challenge facing high-speed rail is
not the danger that ridership would not meet expectations — although the
lack of local transit connections in Florida’s proposed
Orlando-Tampa line has fueled those questions — but the appetite of the
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to make the bold leaps necessary
to finish the job.

"There is a great deal of reluctance at FRA in terms of moving too
quickly," Brubaker said, depicting his comments as pragmatism rather
than a knock at the agency. "There is nothing worse, as a bureaucrat,
than having your name on a bad program."

FRA chief Joseph Szabo took heat from
senior senators last week over how his agency has coordinated with
Amtrak and other inter-city rail players, suggesting that the
$2.5 billion Congress approved last fall for high-speed rail might
not be replicated this year unless a more muscular strategy is employed
within the administration.

Indeed, at a congressional field hearing on bullet train service
late last month, Szabo downplayed the significance of the "high-speed"
aspect of inter-city rail. The federal rail program should be understood
"in the context of the transportation markets served and the needs of
the passengers rather than as a race to see how fast a piece of
equipment can move," Szabo said.

That assessment is in line with the White House’s first round of
grant winners, only two of which — California and Florida — plan to
create rail systems that meet international standards for high-speed
trains by topping 150 miles-per-hour speeds. But private-sector planner
Bruce Horowitz warned yesterday that even in the case of Europe and
Asia’s successful rail lines, consistent government spending was needed
to help balance capital and operating budgets.

"There was a misunderstanding, largely here [in America], that
those systems covered their costs," noted Horowitz, who works for the
firm ESH Consult.

Petra Todorovich, director of the urban-planning group America
2050, offered a high-speed rail caveat of her own: the need to pair
viable bullet trains with denser, transit-oriented land use strategies.
"You can’t just build high-speed rail and expect a business district to
spring up around it," she said.

Florida officials have shown signs of heeding Todorovich’s
concerns, vowing
this week to extend its high-speed service south to Miami and
pursuing an ambitious commuter rail
network in the Orlando area.

APTA vice president Art Guzzetti acknowledged the need to temper
expectations for the high-speed rail program by raising a rhetorical
question to other attendees at yesterday’s briefing: "Did we jump into
high-speed rail before we were ready?"

Guzzetti quickly answered his own question, asserting that "the
administration did the right thing." He called the $8 billion the
late-in-the-game addition to the stimulus "bold" and "abrupt," but
also pivotal in terms of the governmental and media interest that it
generated.

Yet not all rail advocates are as optimistic as the federal
program’s $10.5 billion budget would suggest. Eric Peterson, a former
deputy administrator of the U.S. DOT’s research
arm who now leads the American High-Speed Rail Alliance (AHSRA), lamented yesterday that
"so far … the nation is basically unprepared to deal with" the work
necessary to build true high-speed rail.

Citing projections that American bullet train service could require
as much four decades to complete, Peterson said: "By the time we get
[our systems] built, the level of technology for high-speed rail service
in the world will be at a whole different plane. That leaves us with an
$8 billion expenditure for a [low] margin of rail investments."

The Commerce panel's bill, released yesterday by panel chairman Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) office, also would authorize $300 million in additional funding over the next three years for auto safety enforcement and provide whistleblower protections to car industry employees who notify the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of possible safety risks.

The lifting of existing caps on per-vehicle penalties is likely to please safety advocates such as Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen, who have called for much higher penalties for automakers found to be in violation of NHTSA standards. Toyota has agreed to a record-high $16.4 million fine for its slow response to the widespread defects found in its gas pedals but did not acknowledge any improper actions.

In addition to the Commerce panel's release today -- check out a full summary of the bill after the jump -- the House Energy & Commerce Committee is planning a Thursday hearing on auto safety issues.

(ed. note. This post was corrected from an original draft that improperly totaled the additional NHTSA funding.)