Obama announcing the American Jobs Act. Photo: SHRM

Specifically, they lay out the numbers:

• $27 billion for rebuilding roads and bridges
• $9 billion for repairing bus and rail transit systems
• $5 billion for projects selected through a competitive grant program
• $4 billion for construction of the high-speed rail network
• $2 billion to improve airport facilities
• $1 billion for a NextGen air traffic control system

It’s encouraging to see the words “upgrading” and “rebuilding” when it comes to roads, indicating that the administration might be adhering to a fix-it-first approach to transportation spending. But, as we mentioned last week, the bridge Obama highlighted recently as a prime target for jobs-bill money isn’t actually in need of repair — transportation officials just want to widen it to allow more traffic to go through faster.

Certainly, the administration has shown a desire to attack the maintenance backlog in the country, but that doesn’t guarantee that highway expansions and sprawl projects won’t get a slice of the “rebuilding” pie.

That said, it’s good to see the plan includes $5 billion for projects funded through a competitive grant program (think TIGER). And it also hits a somewhat more equitable balance between rail/transit and roads than Congressional transportation bills generally do.

The president’s plan also includes an infrastructure bank, funded with $10 billion seed money. The administration says projects will be evaluated on the basis of how badly they’re needed and how much they would help the economy.

Some have said over the last couple of weeks that the I-bank concept is in trouble after the GOP pounced on the Solyndra loan story, in which a solar company filed for bankruptcy soon after receiving half a billion dollars in government-backed loans. Experts say the infrastructure bank proposal would vet projects well and protect taxpayers from risk.

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

Well now, that’s an understatement.

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

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

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

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

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

Mayor Ed Lee and SFMTA Chief Nat Ford demonstrate the iPhone application for SFPark. The first screen displayed is a warning not to check your device while driving. Photos: Bryan Goebel

San Francisco launched the world’s most innovative parking pilot today, a federally-funded trial that promises to revolutionize the way cities manage and price metered curb parking. SFPark will make it easier for motorists to find spaces in busy commercial districts, while reducing congestion, speeding Muni, and improving air quality and safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.

The milestone for SFPark was celebrated at a packed press conference in the North Light Court at City Hall this morning. SFMTA Chief Nat Ford was joined by Mayor Ed Lee, parking guru and UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, and other dignitaries to announce the SFPark iPhone application and real-time parking availability data.

The demand-based parking pilot is being implemented over the coming months, covering 7,000 of the city’s 28,800 metered spaces and 12,250 garage spaces. Drivers, thanks to street sensors, or magnetometers, will be able to check their iPhone application (an app will be available for Android in the coming weeks), or computer, to get real-time data on the availability and cost of parking spaces in 15 commercial districts.

“How many of you have been dumb in your past? How many you have acted dumb? I know I have,” said Mayor Lee. “You know, when you’re driving around looking for a parking space and you’re double parking and you’re running around trying to see whether something will open, you’re dumb.”

“We want to be less dumb about this, and that’s why I’m so happy to launch today’s pilot program, SFPark,” Lee said. “That’s going to be our San Francisco version of congestion pricing.”

From left, Board of Supes Prez David Chiu, SFMTA Chief Nat Ford, UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, SFCTA Executive Director Jose Luis Moskovich, and Supervisor and TA Board Chair Ross Mirkarimi.

Lee said that parking meter translated in Chinese as “the lion machine,” and in Chinese culture “when you are confronted with a lion, the lion eats you.” Because of SFPark, he said, parking meters will be “less of a beast,” and drivers will be so happy they found a spot “you’ll want to Tweet it out.”

“SFPark creates a perfect marriage of technology, real-time information and pricing to make it easier for people to park here in downtown San Francisco,” said Federal Highway Administration Deputy Director Greg Nadeau. “This is not just about technology or pricing. It’s about making it easier to park in a major city and all the benefits that flow from addressing that one issue.”

Nadeau said the federal government was happy to award a $20 million grant to make SFPark happen, and that it was consistent with the livability goals of the U.S. Department of Transportation, led by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Click to enlarge this image of the SFPark iPhone App, now available in the iTunes Store and the SFPark site. Image: SFMTA

“I’m so glad that we’re welcoming your not ordinary smart meter into San Francisco. Finally we have a smart meter that doesn’t cause headaches, it actually helps them,” joked Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the chair of the San Francisco Transportation Authority Board, in reference to the turmoil over PG&E’s electricity smart meters. “There are over 200,000 vehicles that enter San Francisco’s borders every single day and it’s incumbent upon us to do everything that we can to try to alleviate that congestion.”

Professor Shoup said the central idea behind SFPark is that you can’t set the right price for curb parking without first knowing how people are using that parking.

“SFPark sets a clear principle for setting the prices for curb parking, the lowest price the city can charge without creating a shortage. So, the right price for curb parking in San Francisco is rather like the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography: I know it when I see it.”

He pointed out that thirty percent of San Francisco households don’t own a car and the city uses parking meter revenue to subsidize Muni. Oftentimes, transit riders “are mired in traffic congested by richer drivers who are cruising for under-priced curb parking.”

“You pay every time you board a bus and that makes you think about whether you want to ride the bus. If you also pay the market price for curb parking every time you pull into a space it will also make you think about whether you want to drive,” Shoup told the crowd, adding that SFPark has the potential to tame the politics surrounding parking because “wanting more money will no longer justify raising the price of parking.”

Today’s City Hall event marked the culmination of years of work by the SFMTA on the project, which initially faced a wave of resistance, and now enjoys the full support of the city’s political establishment. SFMTA staffers, led by SFPark Manager Jay Primus and SFMTA CFO Sonali Bose, worked tirelessly over the past three years conducting outreach to elected officials, merchants and neighborhood groups.

“The people who are working on SFPark are the smartest and most talented and most overworked civil servants I have ever met,” said Shoup. “If SFPark is a success, it will be in large part due to the heroic determination to make it work here.”

And if it doesn’t work?

“Well, then you can always blame it on a dumb professor from Los Angeles,” Shoup said.

"I think SFPark will give San Francisco the best of both worlds. If it works it will make San Francisco an even better place to live and work and visit and do business. It will be another feather in the city's cap and other cities around the world will copy you," said UCLA Professor and parking guru Donald Shoup.

One of SFPark's 5,000 "coin and card" meters. SFPark will result in less congestion in busy commercial corridors, which will mean improved conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Using the new credit-card enabled parking meters. Photo: SFMTA

The central principle of San Francisco’s cutting-edge parking management program, SFPark, comes right from Econ 101. If there are more people looking for parking than there are parking spaces (i.e. demand is greater than supply) adjust the price of parking until there is enough turnover on a given street, or roughly one free parking space per block. Sounds simple in theory, right?

On the other hand, implementing the principle in real-world conditions at over 6,000 curbside parking spaces and 11,500 off-street spaces in city-owned garages is very complicated. The federal government, which has paid for most of the program with approximately $20 million in grants, wants proof that San Francisco can meet its stated goals of reducing traffic and speeding up transit with smart parking management. That will require copious data and extensive analysis.

Most importantly for parking managers at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), they want the public to like it. If a driver doesn’t get to a parking space quickly, thus reducing the cruising for spaces that generates up to 40 percent of local traffic in some cities, then the program won’t deliver on its goal. Similarly if drivers aren’t happy with the convenience of the new meters or other payment options, like pay-by-phone.

Jay Primus, SFPark’s manager, understands the significance of his work and has been spending most of his waking hours for the last three years at work or conducting outreach with businesses, politicians and community groups.

As I sat down recently with Primus in his windowless office on the top floor of the SFMTA building at 1 South Van Ness Avenue, I was impressed with the impeccable order he kept. Two rows of more than twenty manila envelopes were lined neatly on a table near his desk, each representing a different part of the project, from a folder bearing the name of the communications consultants he hired, to another for grant obligation deadlines to the US Department of Transportation.

Several enormous maps of San Francisco and the SFPark areas adorned his office walls. One map, approximately 5 feet by 5 feet, showed every publicly available parking space in San Francisco and represented the first census of parking spaces conducted in any city in the world. On another wall, Primus had a scrolling work-flow plan tacked right above a cover story in the tabloid San Francisco Examiner with the inflammatory headline, “Parking Privileges to Be Revoked!”

Primus, a tall man with a studious mien and a quiet voice, worked as a transportation planner for a private firm before joining the SFMTA in 2007 to direct SFPark. He measures most of his words carefully, often stopping mid-sentence to replace technical jargon with more pedestrian language.

Primus tells me the public’s reaction to the new meters that accept credit cards has been “largely positive.” He acknowledges that some have complained that the meters are not easy to read at night, but he says increasing the back-lighting uses more power and shortens battery life.

In addition to the information the SFMTA will gather from the new parking meters about how people choose to pay and how long they pay, the agency has installed occupancy sensors in the pavement in SFPark areas that provide real-time information on how long cars are parking at spaces. When I ask him about the information the agency is already collecting, his eyes light up. “One of the most exciting things about SFpark is the fabulous, unprecedented data set,” he said. “I do believe it’s the first of its kind.”

The Unprecedented Data Set

Primus and his team will cross-reference those parking data from the meters and sensors with citation data; travel demand data from regional and city roadway sensors; transit boardings from BART and Muni; parking tax and sales tax returns; collision statistics from the SFPD and the state; manual data collection such as driver intercept surveys, parking search time surveys, double parking counts, disabled placard use, occupancy information in residential neighborhoods adjacent to SFPark areas; and exogenous statistics like the cost of gasoline, the unemployment rate, the consumer price index and hourly precipitation.

Comparing parking data to transit boardings on Muni is not trivial, Primus explains, because he will have to demonstrate the effect smarter parking management has on transit travel time and transit delays. If there are open spaces at the curb, in theory there should less double-parking and fewer delays to buses. Measuring parking and sales tax returns or gas prices should let the SFMTA know how much of the reduction in traffic is due to SFPark and how much is due to larger economic patterns. He even hopes to show that better parking management reduces traffic collisions and increases safety as drivers cruise less for an elusive space.

The obvious implication about the status quo in San Francisco and every other city that doesn’t collect this information is that policy makers know embarrassingly little about how the standards, prices and regulations they put on parking actually effect traffic, the way people park, or even how people feel about parking (and in civic life, parking is almost as emotive an issue as the crime rate).

Donald Shoup, the UCLA economics professor and author of The High Cost of Free Parking, whose work is the theoretical underpinning of SFPark, has a favorite adage that he quoted to Streetsblog when critiquing how parking policies are currently set nearly everywhere: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

SFPark should give San Francisco managers an unparalleled road map whereby they can make educated policy decisions and they can measure the impact those have in real-time.

Improving the Public Perception of Parking

“We’ve done a lot of outreach with SFPark and have talked to a lot of community groups,” said Primus. “People we talk to are sometimes skeptical about the SFMTA’s intentions, that somehow SFPark is meant to gouge drivers for additional parking revenue. That’s just not the case.”

He is actually optimistic the program will become popular with drivers, for numerous reasons. “We hope to earn people’s trust that SFMTA’s parking management can help achieve our goals for the city,” he said.

Click to enlarge this image of the SFPark iPhone App, which will be available soon in the iTunes Store. Image: SFMTA

In addition to the convenience of paying at the meter with credit cards and extending meter limits up to four hours in certain areas, when the SFMTA officially launches the program later this spring, it will provide a map with real-time occupancy and price rates at every meter and parking garage in SFPark. The SFMTA will also release an iPhone app at the launch, with other app formats to follow.

The maps will color-code blocks, with dark blue indicating there are available parking spaces, light blue showing fewer spaces, and red suggesting drivers park elsewhere. Each public garage in the program will be indicated with a large P icon and will be represented with the same color scheme.

Just as drivers look at real-time traffic information on Google Maps, for instance, Primus imagines drivers will check for parking availability at their destination even before they get in the car. What about those drivers who would check their phones while driving? Primus explains that the app uses the phone’s GPS and has an automatic warning if it detects the phone is moving faster than 10 miles per hour. This feature, said Primus, will “remind people that it is illegal to use a cell phone while driving.”

The map and the mobile app will also display pricing information in various shades of green (“for money,” said Primus), with details on parking rates by hour and by location at the tip or one’s fingertips. All real-time data will be made available on an open API for third-party developers as well.

One thing the SFMTA won’t do is give availability by individual parking space, though they have that specificity internally. “We don’t’ want people to race to get to a space or fight over spaces they feel ownership of,” said Primus.

Perhaps the most important part of improving the convenience of parking with SFPark is an option to pay by phone at meters and garages throughout the city. Though the service won’t be activated until later this year, and still needs SFMTA board of directors approval, Primus said they intend to offer the pay-by-phone service at every one of the nearly 27,000 meters citywide.

This would allow anyone who has signed up with a credit card to pay for parking through their phones, to get updates automatically to their phone when time is running out, and to pay for more parking with the touch of a button, so long as they aren’t exceeding time limits. No more leaving a restaurant or a business meeting to feed the meter, said Primus. A similar service is already operational in over 100 cities throughout North America and Europe.

Long-Term Impacts of the Trial

By law, the SFPark meter rates will only change once a month at the most, so drivers shouldn’t expect a price shock. Nor will the rates likely change that dramatically, according to Primus. In some cases, where there are many vacant spaces in an area, the meter rates could come down.

No one will know how it all works before the trial starts, but the SFMTA expects to gain efficiencies in meter maintenance and enforcement. As Primus noted, the meters will instantly communicate with his database when they go out of service, so meter technicians won’t have to guess or do broad sweeps to find malfunctioning meters.

Enforcement will be much more precise as well, though Primus doesn’t expect to see ticket blitzes. Rather, he argued, with longer time limits and easier ways to pay, such as pay-by-phone, he thinks PCOs will write fewer tickets for meter violations. “We want PCOs to have more time available to enforce other issues, such as double parking, sidewalk parking or driveway parking, issues that effect transportation, quality of life and access more generally,” he said.

In fact, Primus expects meter-related citations to drop significantly as people find it easier to pay. Rather than the current “punitive” ratio of $34 million in meter revenue and $30 million in meter-related fine revenue each year, Primus hopes to see most of the revenue coming from proper payment. “People pay for parking one way or another, either at the meter or with parking tickets. For everyone’s benefit we want everyone to pay at the meter to reduce the number of parking-related tickets we have to give,” he said.

Donald Shoup didn’t mask his excitement about the impending start of SFPark, which he characterized as the most significant example of parking reform to come in the six years since he published his 750 page epic (the book has been so popular it will be released in paperback later this year). Shoup said “academics are just drooling about all this data” and he predicted legions of PhD dissertations to result from SFPark.

Most importantly for cities, though, he hoped to see a direct relationship in the data between parking and economic activity. Good parking management “can make the whole transportation system perform better because there is less cruising and it will make the whole economy perform better,” he said. “If this relationship appears in the data, it will show people this is a very powerful tool for economic development in cities.”

Iowa DOT Director Nancy Richardson wants tolls to pay for maintenance, not new capacity. Photo: Iowa DOT

“We believe in tolling,” LaHood said. “You can raise a lot of money with tolls. If a state comes to us with good plans for tolling, yes, we’ll be responsive to that… as long as you’re building more capacity. That’s really what we’re going to look at.”

As state transportation officials struggle with state of good repair, they are beginning to chafe at the federal restriction that allows tolling only for new capacity – not maintenance or other needs.

“The argument always is, we shouldn’t toll for reconstruction because we’ve already paid for them once,” said Iowa DOT Director Nancy Richardson in an interview with Streetsblog. “But we’ve paid for them and we’ve used that value. Now it’s time to reinvest.”

She says maintenance, or “stewardship”, is a much higher priority for her state than capacity — to the point where she considers spending all of her funds on stewardship.

We probably have about 75 percent of our money going to that now. But our system has taken such a beating in the last five years because the weather has been so dramatic – both winters and flooding – so we’ve seen accelerated deterioration and costs over the past five or six years, without revenues going up significantly. Our bang for the buck is less. So we have to look, like all states, to see if we have to almost completely shift our funds to maintenance, or stewardship, as we call it, rather than capacity.

Secretary LaHood admitted, when asked, that the Federal Highway Administration had rejected tolls for Pennsylvania’s I-80 because the tolls were going to be used for “other things” besides new capacity.

Later in the session, a representative of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association asked a panel of Congressional staffers what plans the Senate and House had for “relaxing restrictions on tolling of interstate highways as a way to propel additional funding into the system.”

First, a Republican staffer from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee answered, “We have no problem with tolls. Paying the true cost of the road is something we’re going to have to address.”

He said state DOTs are like utilities with growing needs and no ability to change their rates. “At some point we’re going to have to give states the ability to pay for their own infrastructure,” he said. “It should not be the federal government’s position to inhibit states from providing for themselves.”

He said he had yet to see the administration’s proposal on tolling but “little birdies have told me it’s not looking good. And there are many people that believe that the interstates should be free.”

Another staffer from the House side, however, affirmed that Republicans are “not looking at tolling existing capacity.”

Richardson of the Iowa DOT says it’s frustrating when federal officials talk about their big, “bold” ideas for investment without being realistic about how they’re going to raise the money to pay for it. Like a gas tax increase, tolling for state of good repair appears to be “off the table,” leaving many state officials wondering how the administration’s big plans for infrastructure investment will ever get off the ground.

Image: CAHSRA

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced $2.4 billion in grants for high speed and commuter rail projects around the country today, including $900 million for various portions of California’s rail network and High-Speed Rail project.

US DOT Secretary Ray LaHood compared the initial investment in high-speed rail networks across the country under the Obama Administration to the Interstate Highway system under President Eisenhower starting in the 1950s. The highway system, writes LaHood on his blog, “is the life-blood of American commerce and mobility.”

“Every vision this nation ever realized began with a few courageous steps,” LaHood continues. “If we put off high-speed rail by saying it will take too long to build, then it will never happen. Now it’s time for another bold step. The America I grew up in didn’t just happen. Our nation’s progress was only made possible through the imagination, investment, and hard work of those who came before. And I’m proud that, today, we’re adding to that legacy with President Obama’s commitment to high-speed rail.”

The federal money is being spread across various high-speed rail corridors from Florida to Illinois to Seattle. John Robert Smith, the CEO of national transit non-profit Reconnecting America, commended the Obama administration for the grants and also compared the initiative to the Interstate Highway system.

“A national high-speed rail system is not only an opportunity to redefine how we travel and how our regional economies grow, it represents the type of innovation and progress that can guarantee another century of growth and prosperity in America,” Smith said in a statement.  “It gives people a choice in how they travel, something polls have shown Americans want.”

Of the various high-speed rail projects around the country, the California project received the most money, reflecting the groundwork that has already been done in the state to prepare for a system that will link San Francisco with Los Angeles in under three hours.

The first phase of the 800-mile high-speed rail system will span the San Francisco Bay Area to the Los Angeles metropolitan area and will be built in several sections to manage the construction process and gets trains on the tracks as soon as possible, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA). The four sections being considered as the potential launch point for high-speed rail construction are San Francisco to San Jose, Merced to Fresno, Fresno to Bakersfield and Los Angeles to Anaheim. The CAHSRA  is currently in the environmental analysis phase for all sections in the system.

Of the $900 million total to the state, $715 million of the funding is earmarked for the Central Valley Corridor, either the Merced-to-Fresno or Fresno-to-Bakersfield sections. The money is expected to build 500 miles of high-speed rail track, rail stations and control technology. The new grant brings the total secured for construction on the CAHSR system to $4.3 billion, according to the CAHSRA. Construction of the core system will begin in 2012, after route alternatives have been chosen and environmental review completed.

CAHSRA CEO Roelof van Ark has committed the CAHSRA to a set of route selection criteria and the Federal Railway Administration has given the CAHSRA until January to determine which segment of the route it will begin building first.

“It is absolutely critical that we invest these funds where they will do the most good,” van Ark said in a statement several weeks ago. “We want our board of directors to have all the facts when they make this decision, so we are spelling out both the legal requirements and a clear assessment of the benefits and risks in each eligible section.”

Though the federal grant is directed at the Central Valley Corridor, there is no guarantee the CAHSRA will start with that segment, though van Ark acknowledged that today’s grant could lead to the impression that the Central Valley Corridor would be the first.

“While we recognize that the federal government has indicated a preference by specifying the Central Valley for the bulk of the award, the [CAHSRA] is committed to using formal criteria in making the selection to decide where to begin building high-speed rail,” said van Ark.

The next meeting of the CAHSRA board is set for November 4th, when it will discuss the formal criteria and obligations it faces under federal law and Proposition 1A, the $10 billion bond California voters approved in 2008. According to the CAHSRA, the selection for construction of the first segment is expected before the end of the year.

Robert Cruickshank of Californians for High Speed Rail, a non-profit that supports the project, argued the grant shouldn’t be seen by the public as competition between segments. “This shouldn’t be about picking winners and losers. This should be about picking the timeline for construction,” said Cruickshank. He said the availability of federal matching funds is one of the important criteria for selecting the first segment, but it is not the only one.

“I think they have to assess other pieces of the puzzle,” he said. “They have to make sure the environmental approvals are significantly advanced. It may make it a bit more likely, but it’s not a done deal.”

Cruickshank argued that much more energy should be spent on securing additional federal funding, a prospect that could be increasingly difficult depending on the outcome of the November 2nd election. If Republicans took control of the House or both the House and the Senate, said Cruickshank, a new transportation bill with significant money for high-speed rail could be wishful thinking. At that point, he said, the CAHSRA might need to rely on foreign sovereign wealth funds from China, Japan, or the Middle East.

“A lot will depend on what happens on Tuesday,” said Cruickshank.

Federal Grants Beyond High Speed Rail

In addition to the money given to the CAHSRA for the Central Valley Corridor, the US DOT announced various other grants for improving existing rail infrastructure throughout California. From the US DOT announcement:

• Caltrans will receive $100 million to purchase approximately 40 new bi-level intercity passenger rail cars and several locomotives for use throughout the state.
• The San Francisco to San Jose High-Speed Rail Corridor will get a $16 million grant to improve San Francisco’s 4th and King Street Station by reconfiguring tracks and signals, elongating platforms, and modifying the building to accommodate future high-speed rail service on the San Francisco – San Jose segment of the California high-speed rail corridor.
• The Pacific Surfliner Corridor from San Luis Obispo to San Diego will receive grants worth approximately $30.1 million to pay for planning and environmental studies along the route.
• Two additional FY 2009 awards of $24.9 million and $13.5 million will be used to install positive train control technology and upgrade signal communications on the corridor between San Diego and Moorpark. These projects will improve on-time performance and ultimately allow for top speeds of 110 miles per hour on the segment connecting Los Angeles and San Diego.
• A $1.5 million grant will allow California to complete its State Rail Plan.
• The San Joaquin Corridor (Sacramento/Oakland — Bakersfield) will receive a $300,000 grant to fund the completion of planning and environmental studies.

U.S. DOT's Roy Kienitz said that in some cases, federal funding should support reconstructing bridges to work for more than just cars. Concept for bike-ped path on Cleveland's Innerbelt Crossing: GreenCityBlueLake.

In a meeting with transportation reform advocates last week, Secretary Ray LaHood indicated that the administration’s proposal will drop early next year. Today Kienitz tipped his hat to the reform community in describing the goals the administration has in mind:

The first thing you have to do is name your goals if you want to make sure you’re pursuing them… Our strategic goals are pretty simple: economic competitiveness, safety, state of good repair of the existing system, environmental sustainability, and community livability.

Today’s hearing was about financing, however, and Kienitz acknowledged that the path toward those lofty goals is a little complicated. But he did give some hints about what the administration’s thinking. He said U.S. DOT is trying to foster a financing system that does a better job of matching the project to the need:

Some places they propose a transit investment, in some places we have to rebuild the bridges that already exist but configure it differently, whether it’s for bicycles, pedestrians, cars, or transit. Other places we need to invest in highway capacity – but that should be case by case. [emphasis added]

Kienitz also stood up for allocating funds without the constraint of formulas based on different modes of travel: “Right now… a highway dollar is only a highway dollar, and a transit dollar is only a transit dollar.” He said a project like Los Angeles’ ambitious transit expansion requires more money with more flexibility.

So he’s beating the drum for higher funding levels, and for finding a way to pay for it, and for doing it soon. “Given the economic situation right now,” he said, “it seems appropriate to frontload a significant share of that money, and we have suggested the first $50 billion to be made available as soon as possible.”

But “as soon as possible” looks to be at least four months away. Congress is already itching to get out of town, and leadership could adjourn the session as soon as tomorrow night. A lame-duck session after the election will deal with tax cut extensions and some other urgent matters. Big new initiatives like these will have to wait until the new Congress gets sworn in — one that will have a much different look if Republicans make the gains they’re hoping to make.

The Tucson Modern Streetcar project was awarded $63 million in the first round of TIGER funding. (Image: Tucson Regional Transit Authority)

That’s the word from the DOT, which announced on Friday that it had received about $19 billion in applications for nearly 1,000 projects “from all 50 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.” The volume of applications, which range from “highways and bridges to transit and ports,” far exceeds the $600 million available in TIGER II funds.

States competing for TIGER II money need to show that their transportation projects will have significant economic and environmental benefits at a city-wide, regional, or national level. Since the money is awarded at the discretion of DOT using set criteria, not disbursed through the rote formulas that govern most transportation funding, it’s been a catalyst for innovative transportation projects.

David Burwell, a co-founder of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, isn’t surprised at the overwhelming response to TIGER II. “It shows the enormous interest states have in discretionary money,” he says. “With formula money, states will tell you, ‘That’s our money; we don’t have to do anything for formula money.’ Offer discretionary money and they’ll do backflips.”

According to Burwell, who now heads up the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the volume of TIGER II applications indicates that state DOTs are willing to reform their focus on highways, but they want something in return for the reforms they make. “Otherwise they’ll spend all their money filling potholes and keeping bridges from falling down,” he says. In other words, if you want states to make real advances on transit and smart urban design, you have to give them some incentive.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made a similar point in last week’s announcement. “The wave of applications for both TIGER II and TIGER I dollars shows the back-log of needed infrastructure improvements and the desire for more flexible funds,” he said in a statement. According to the DOT, the appetite for TIGER II funds is not quite as ravenous as it was for TIGER I, when the department got $60 billion in applications for $1.5 billion in available grants.

This time around, TIGER II includes a partnership between the DOT and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to disburse planning grants. $35 million in TIGER II funds will combine with $40 million from HUD to pay for transit-oriented development. In another sign of the closer collaboration among federal agencies, two other departments – Agriculture and the EPA – are getting in on the action too, helping to evaluate the planning grant applications.

“First and foremost is how does all this dovetail with the reauthorization of the multi-year surface transportation law that now expires at the end of this year?” asked moderator Rob Puentes of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, laying out the unknowns. “The President called for $50 billion. Is that just for an infrastructure bank? Is that the front-loaded part of this multi-year law? Is it both?”

The panel didn’t have answers to every question, but a few themes emerged. First, enthusiasm for a national infrastructure bank is strong among the transportation reform community, which sees it as a vehicle not only to jumpstart investment, but to select projects based on merit and strategic goals like economic competitiveness and reducing carbon emissions.

Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy Polly Trottenberg. Image: Brookings

The second is that administration officials are still fine-tuning the policies and programs they want to see in the next transportation bill. Polly Trottenberg, assistant secretary for transportation policy at U.S. DOT, said she wants to adjust the way her agency distributes competitive grants. She called the TIGER program too reactive — letting states and regions propose isolated projects and then choosing the best among them. She’d rather have more latitude to help regions start broad new reforms. DOT, she said, is looking to the administration’s education grants program, Race to the Top, for inspiration. They’re tentatively calling the transpo version “Wheel in the Sky” (yes – like the Journey song) but Trottenberg didn’t seem to think that name would stick.

As for that 800-pound gorilla… the question of financing the transportation program is still, well, a question. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) suggested that some form of user fees, whether congestion pricing or mileage taxes, would be necessary — and politically feasible if the public sees that the money will be well-spent. “It is the public understanding of this which will help to bring the politicians along as well,” DeLauro said. “We need real public education on this issue of what infrastructure means to you personally.”

To make her point, she looked to the Los Angeles transit funding ballot measure known as Measure R, which voters passed in 2008. “The Mayor of Los Angeles went to the public,” she said. “The people of Los Angeles said yes, they were willing to spend a half-cent more on a sales tax in order to get the benefit of this very visionary transit system.”

Every panelist agreed that the administration is going to have to sell its infrastructure program as a wise investment, no matter what. Said Michael Greenstone of Brookings’ Hamilton Project, “If there’s greater confidence that the money is being spent on the high-payoff projects, I think that would loosen some of the political support for funding these.”

U.S. DOT Deputy Assistant Secretary Beth Osborne. Photo: Adam Voiland

Federal lawmakers usually set transportation policy by authorizing a major spending bill every five or six years. The last of these bills — known as SAFETEA-LU — expired in 2009, but lawmakers’ efforts to agree on a reauthorization bill have languished in Congressional committees due to disagreements about how to pay for it.

Since SAFETEA-LU expired, Congress has passed stopgap spending measures to keep the system functioning; however, the lack of a coherent, long-term vision has left state and city transportation departments adrift and has made it challenging for them to plan strategically.

On Labor Day, President Obama put transportation near the top of his agenda by calling on Congress to tackle stagnant job growth by repairing and upgrading infrastructure. He asked Congress to ramp up investment in roads and rail, create a federal infrastructure bank that would help fund large and complex projects, reform the Balkanized structure of federal transportation spending programs, and make the nation’s transportation system safer and more livable. Advocates for shifting away from the highway-centric effects of current federal policy were encouraged by Obama’s use of the word “reform,” and the lack of any mention of expanding highways.

However, in many ways, Obama’s Labor Day proposal lacked specificity. Most notably, it offered little insight into how the administration expects Congress to pay for the next reauthorization. At yesterday’s event, the deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy at U.S. DOT, Beth Osborne, made clear the lack of specificity was by design. “I’ll be very honest. There aren’t a lot of details beneath what we put out to the public,” she said. “We really want to go at this in cooperation with Congress.”

And that process, she warned, won’t necessarily be a smooth one. While the last several authorizations have had plenty of funding, the program is broke this time around due to the dwindling power of the gas tax. “It’s not going to be as easy, but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing,” she said.

One of the administration’s priorities, she noted, will be to improve the livability of the nation’s cities and towns. Critics in Washington, she said, have told her that livability is hard to define, but that the concept has proven easy enough to grasp for people outside of politics:

Interestingly, I really only hear that inside the Beltway. When you travel with the Secretary nobody thinks it’s hard to define and nobody needs it defined. They know exactly what we’re talking about. And it is remarkable. This is not a regional thing, this is not a big community versus small community thing. People really get what you’re talking about. What we’re talking about with livability is a community that has transportation choices, different types of housing, and destinations close to your home. That’s it. Not a terribly complex concept.

Senator Barbara Boxer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US DOT Secretary Ray Lahood, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Transbay Joint Powers Authority Board Chairman and SFMTA CEO Nat Ford at the Transbay Transit Center groundbreaking. Photos: Matthew Roth.

Though most of the California political class celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Transbay Transit Center with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood in San Francisco yesterday, significant questions remain for funding a national high-speed rail network through the federal transportation act.

The event swarmed with Secret Service and various other branches of law enforcement keeping an eye on a crowd that, as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom joked with LaHood, was mostly made up of consultants on the Transbay project.

LaHood cracked wise several times at Newsom's expense, repeating more comments Newsom made before the press conference to the public and the media and suggesting Californian's should vote him in as Lt. Governor on his humor alone.

When he stopped ribbing Newsom, LaHood gushed about how far "ahead of the curve" California is on high-speed rail. LaHood said U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had cast "courageous votes" that made the stimulus bill possible, which meant a $48 billion infusion for the US DOT or nearly two-thirds his annual budget. From the $8 billion President Barack Obama added for high-speed rail nationally, California received $2.3 billion, $400 million of that for the Transbay Transit Center.

"People who come back from Europe or Asia and have ridden high-speed rail, like many of you have, come back to America and ask why we don't have high-speed rail in America? Because we've never made the investment, that's why," said LaHood. "This year we had 8 billion times more money for high-speed rail given President Obama's vision to connect America with high-speed, inter-city rail."

LaHood also pointed to California's competitive advantage in federal money for high speed rail because the state has "its act together and you want high-speed rail, you've been working on it for a decade."

"The people deserve a lot of credit, to go to the polls, and to cast votes to raise taxes in order to develop the kind of infrastructure for high-speed rail, the people deserve a lot of credit."

While ribbon cutting on such a monumental project made for good photos and sound bites, long-term funding for high-speed rail nationally and in California is not a sure thing. Despite the $8 billion last year and another $2.5 billion this year, the U.S. lags far behind China, which is investing nearly $300 billion over the next decade on its high-speed rail network. What's more, states sought seven times more funding for rail than the stimulus gave out and demand is only growing.

When asked if the Senate will take up the re-authorization of the national transportation act, Senator Boxer told Streetsblog after the Transbay event she hoped to have a bill out of her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and to the Senate floor this year. "I think we have a very good chance but I can't say for sure," she said.

When asked if her bill would mirror House Transportation Committee Chair James Oberstar's (D-MN) commitment to increase transit funding, Boxer said, "I would hope so. I would hope we will be able to do that."

When asked whether she thought she could convince Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking minority leader on her committee and an opponent of linking climate and transportation policies, to support money for high-speed rail or at least stay out of her way, she said, "I don't know how he feels on high-speed rail," but that it was "not necessarily a problem."

Senator Boxer elaborating on the climate and transportation bills.

Boxer also noted that with a comprehensive energy bill unlikely in the near term, she and her colleagues were looking for numerous other options to "put a price on carbon," whether by making sure the Environmental Protection Agency was vigilant in regulating carbon emissions or by supporting states' efforts to limit climate change, such as the Western Climate Initiative.

"If we can't convince our colleagues that this is serious, we're going to do absolutely everything we can absent comprehensive legislation," she said.

While the federal agenda was important to her, Boxer indicated she was concerned with a local battle now brewing: California's Proposition 23, which would suspend the landmark AB 32 climate change law. "The other thing I have to do is just make sure California can move forward and that there's no preemption of what we're doing. Right now I'm fighting to defeat Prop 23, which would be a disaster," she said.

Given recent polling that shows Boxer losing ground to her Republican Senate challenger, Carly Fiorina, transportation advocates nationally should be concerned. If she were to lose her seat to Fiorina and the EPW committee were to be shaken up, a transportation act with significant funding for transit and high-speed rail would be more precarious.

Shaun
Donovan, Ray LaHood, Lisa Jackson: Together forever? The Livable
Communities Act would codify the partnership between HUD, US DOT, and
the EPA. Photo: EPA

The administration has been taking steps since last March to coordinate between the Department of Transportation, HUD, and the EPA. This bill, carried in the Senate by Connecticut’s Chris Dodd, would formalize those partnerships and authorize substantially more funding to work with. 

Most of the action would flow through HUD. This year the agency is funding $150 million in grants
supporting regional efforts to improve access to transit and promote
walkable development. The Livable Communities Act promises to scale up
that program significantly, creating a new office within HUD, called the
Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, that will distribute
about $4 billion through competitive grants.

The initial round of grants would fund comprehensive plans — local
initiatives to shape growth by coordinating housing, transportation,
and economic development policies. Most of the funding — $3.75 billion
– would be distributed over three years to implement projects
identified in such plans.

While some Senators from rural states had expressed skepticism
about the benefits of the bill for their constituents, yesterday’s vote
split strictly along party lines, with Democrats Jon Tester of Montana
and Tim Johnson of South Dakota both voting in favor.

To make the case for the bill to his rural and Republican counterparts, Dodd singled out Envision Utah,
a campaign that has built public support for smart growth policies in
one of the country’s reddest states. Not a single GOP Senator voted for
the bill, however, even Utah’s Bob Bennett, who told UPI, "I think the overall philosophy is wise, but I will be voting against it."

Some of the strongest backing for the bill has come from AARP,
which sent a letter to committee members on Monday pointing out that the
country’s aging population will be poorly served if development
patterns don’t evolve to make driving less necessary. "Nine out of ten
of our members tell us they want to stay in their own
homes as they age — most are living in suburban or rural areas and
don’t have access to public transportation," said Debra Alvarez, senior
legislative representative for AARP. "There’s a lot of things that can
be done in small towns: co-locating
things like post offices, grocery stores, pharmacies, and putting
housing there too."

Advocates for transportation reform are now looking at the path
forward for the bill. "We applaud the Committee for taking this major
step forward on behalf of communities both small and large, and for
American families looking for affordable homes in healthy neighborhoods
with reliable transportation options," said Transportation for America
director James Corless in a statement. "We urge the full Senate to
follow their lead and give final passage."

Dodd has vowed to shepherd the Livable Communities Act through to become law
before he retires in January. With Congress about to adjourn until
September 13, he’ll face a tight time frame. In addition to awaiting a
vote in the full Senate, the bill has yet to clear a committee vote in the House, where Colorado representative Ed Perlmutter is the sponsor.

Maryland Senator Ben Cardin addresses the crowd yesterday. Photo: Adam Voiland

The head of the District Department of Transportation, Gabe Klein, called the current moment one of the scariest times in transportation history. He warned that lawmakers have difficult and uncomfortable decisions ahead about how to pay for the reauthorization bill.

Klein emphasized the need for diversified sources of funding for transportation investment, despite the political challenges. He noted, for example, that local jurisdictions, like DC, should have the latitude to explore congestion pricing as a way to raise revenue.

During the same panel, Richard Sarles, the interim general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) explained that his agency is spending much of its funding on efforts to improve the safety of its system after a catastrophic Metro collision last summer. With little clarity about what the future holds, Sarles warned that there simply aren’t funds available to address large expected increases in ridership on city transit systems in the coming years.

Reform-minded lawmakers, most notably House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Jim Oberstar (D-MN), have made it an urgent priority to reauthorize the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA-LU, or, more commonly, the transportation bill). But with revenues from the stagnant gas tax flagging, lawmakers can’t agree on how to raise the funds needed for the bill, and they’ve postponed dealing with the problem by passing a series of emergency extensions.

The frustration was evident among attendees at yesterday's conference. "There’s no innovation right now," said Faramarz Mokhtari, a planner at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. "The status quo is continuing."

Image: Cincinnati Enquirer

Also on the list is Boston's regional bike-share network, slated to receive $3 million to help build more than 500 public bicycle stations. The bike-share project made the cut because of its potential to expand the reach and accessibility of the bus and rail system. Boston's bike-share launch recently got pushed back to 2011, but at that scale, it would be, by far, the largest system in the country.

Here's a sample of the major projects that got a boost:

• Cincinnati will receive $25 million to help build a six-mile streetcar route, with an eye toward spurring mixed-use development downtown. The city planning commission recently took the enlightened step of reducing parking requirements along the future streetcar route.
  
• Chicago received support for a pair of rapid bus projects: $11 million for the Jeffery BRT corridor, which will improve service to major job center on a route with poor access to trains, and $25 million for a two-mile, east-west bus priority street serving several routes downtown.
  
• New York City's 34th Street busway got an $18 million grant. Streetsblog NYC readers have been following this project for a couple of years. NYCDOT recently announced its intention to make 34th Street the first physically separated busway in the city.
  
• One of the surprise winners was Fort Worth, which received about $25 million for a 2.5-mile one-way streetcar loop, intended to serve as the hub in a future network. Streetsblog Network member Fort Worthology called the grant "incredible and extremely positive news" for the larger streetcar project.
  

You can see the complete list of projects here.

The funds are being distributed through two competitive grant programs that LaHood unveiled last December. The "Urban Circulator" and "Bus and Bus Livability" programs are tied to the Obama administration's multi-agency livability initiative. The funding streams are separate from DOT's larger competitive grant program, known as TIGER.

In an announcement this morning, LaHood indirectly tied the transit grants to the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. "This investment by the Obama Administration in our nation's communities will create jobs, boost economic development and recovery, and further reduce our dependence on oil," he said in a statement. Note: He said "oil," plain and simple. Not "foreign oil."

Advocates for reforming national transportation policy applauded the grant program, noting that demand for funding far outstripped supply. "As the grants show, communities across the country are clamoring to use transportation investments to boost their economy while making their communities better places to live and work," said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. "FTA did a great job in rounding up this money to put wheels on President Obama's livability initiative, but we think that more communities should be able to benefit from these sorts of programs. DOT needs to have more money for smart, accountable, competitive programs like this in the future."

Federal funding for pedestrian and bicycle projects reached a new high last year, according to a report released today by the Federal Highway Administration. In terms of dollars, federal investment in walking and biking more than doubled compared to the previous high, set in 2007, thanks largely to an infusion of $400 million in stimulus funds.

The share of all federal transportation spending devoted to bike-ped projects also rose to an unprecedented level -- all of two percent. Advocates for walking and biking applauded the trend while pointing out the potential for much greater federal commitment to active transportation.

"It continues to be an improvement, and it continues to be a tiny fraction of the money that's available to potentially be spent on biking and walking," said Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists.

Subtracting the $400 million one-shot in stimulus funding, Clarke noted, yields a less impressive year-on-year increase. And part of the increase in reported bike-ped spending might also simply reflect better record keeping by state DOTs, as agencies document the construction of sidewalks and bike lanes as part of larger projects, according to Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition.

The spending figures come from an update on the state of walking and biking that the feds release every five years. The original National Bicycling and Walking Study, released in 1994, set two major targets: to double walk and bike mode-share, from 7.9 percent of all trips to 15.8 percent; and to reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities by 10 percent.

Today, walking and biking account for 11.9 percent of all trips in the country, according to data from the National Household Travel Survey cited in the FHWA report. The safety target, meanwhile, has already been met, with pedestrian deaths down 22 percent and cycling deaths down 13 percent between 1994 and 2008.

In a post on the U.S. DOT Secretary's blog, Ray LaHood implied that the targets have to get more ambitious:

But, we are still talking about 4,378 pedestrians and 716 bicyclists killed in 2008. No matter how we look at the data, that is just too many.

One way to strengthen national goals for walking and biking, Clarke suggested, is to make them less open-ended and attach specific timeframes to achieve them by. "That performance metric is essential," he said, noting that the original 1994 targets were weakened by the lack of a deadline. "One could argue that we could have achieved [the mode-share target] years ago. We would say, let's recalibrate, so that by 2020 we need to reach 20 percent mode share for bike-walk."

The progress cited in today's report, said Clarke, highlights the need for a robust federal commitment to walking and biking in the next federal transportation bill. "States wouldn't have done this if left to their own devices," he said. "Without the federal leadership, without the funding and targets, we would not have seen movement voluntarily. We need that continued federal leadership in the next transportation bill moving forward. The states have not embraced it sufficiently for it to be left to chance."

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.

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."

After a six-week delay, Congress last night agreed to repay U.S. DOT employees for the two days of work they missed when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) filibustered an extension of the 2005 transportation law, forcing a temporary shutdown of much of the federal agency's business.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) (Photo: CNN)

The repayment language was attached to a larger measure that temporarily extended unemployment benefits, which President Obama quickly signed into law this morning.

The House had approved a stand-alone bill compensating the U.S. DOT workers last month, but Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) held it up in a bid to force Congress to pay the estimated $1 million cost out of its own accounts, rather than using funds already appropriated to the agency.

Nearly 2,000 employees were held off the job at the U.S. DOT while Senate leaders navigated Bunning's blockade, which stemmed from his insistence on paying for a separate unemployment benefits extension that was attached to the transportation measure. The transportation law was ultimately extended retroactively, and later until 2011 under a jobs bill that President Obama signed last month.

“Restoring the lost pay is the right thing to do," House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), sponsor of the repayment measure, said in a statement.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made a surprise visit to the closing reception of the National Bike Summit last night, speaking to a record crowd of bicycle advocates and industry representatives, many of whom spent the day swarming the halls of the Capitol as part of the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) annual lobby day.

"People get it. People want to live in livable communities," LaHood told the crowd, after hoisting himself atop a table in the Dirksen Senate Office Building room so the large gathering could see him. "People want streetcars that are made in Portland, Oregon. People want walking paths, biking paths, and opportunities for families to really do the things they do best, which is to hang together and have fun. You all created an opportunity for America with all of your hard work."

"I’ve been all over America, and where I’ve been in America I’ve been very proud to talk about the fact that people do want alternatives. They want out of their cars, they want out of congestion, they want to live in livable neighborhoods and livable communities." He added, to thunderous applause, "you've got a partner in Ray LaHood."

"Ray, we've got your back," said Congressman Earl Blumenaur, the founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, who told attendees that they have made a difference but there are "a lot of people who don't get the big picture yet."

The reception ended the league's 10th annual summit, which saw a record number of attendees: more than 700 advocates from all over the country took part.

"From my perspective what has changed most dramatically is not just the numbers over the years, but our own belief in the ability we have to convince others this stuff actually works," said Andy Clarke, President of the LAB. "We've got examples in the field now in San Francisco, in Portland, in Chicago, New York City, where you can document a real change in behavior, and we've got mode shift going on and we can see why it's happened." 

The underlying theme, as it has been in years past, was the reauthorization of federal transportation law. Bike advocates also asked lawmakers to expand programs like Safe Routes to School and adopt new legislation to improve conditions for walking and biking.

"It's a challenging time to be asking for more funding," said Clarke. "But this isn't new money, first and foremost. There's money in the system that can be used that isn't being used on safety programs or bridges or congestion relief programs that can very legitimately be used for biking and walking."

That message, said Clarke, is what advocates were urged to tell their representatives.

"I was rather impressed with some of the speeches our people made," said bicycling pioneer Gary Fisher, who attended the summit for the first time. "We keep coming and coming and coming and it keeps getting bigger and bigger."

Fisher, wearing his usual tweed suit, joined other advocates in lobbying representatives and ran into Senator Dianne Feinstein in the hallway. Fisher said he thinks lawmakers got the message that the bicycle movement is truly grassroots.

The California delegation was the largest at the event, with more than 60 members. Later in the evening, a benefit at a Union Station restaurant for the California Bicycle Coalition raised more than $30,000. CBC President Dave Snyder says the organization hopes to use the money to hire an executive director.

"The reason I came here was to get national help to revive the CBC and it was gratifying to see the national bike industry and the California bike industry recognize how important it is to have a strong California bicycle voice with reauthorization coming up," said Snyder. "It surprised me to see how eager Californians are to see a powerful bike coalition in the state."

For more on the National Bike Summit, visit Bike Portland. Jonathan Maus cranked out some excellent coverage.

Congressman Earl Blumenaur. Photo by Jeffrey Martin courtesy of the League of American Bicyclists. 

A large crowd of advocates packed a room for the National Bike Summit closing reception in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Photo by Bryan Goebel.

Cycling pioneer Gary Fisher meets Transportation Secretary LaHood. Photo by Bryan Goebel.

Even as the Obama administration ramps up its work on a sustainability initiative that treats transportation, housing, and energy efficiency as interconnected aspects of development policy, the effort remains without an official congressional authorization — a situation that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) vowed to fix yesterday.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) (Photo: The Washington Note)

During an appearance in his home state with Ron Sims, chief of the administration’s inter-agency Office of Livable Communities, Dodd vowed to work for passage of his legislation authorizing $4 billion in grants for Sims’ work.

"I only have about eight to 10 months," he said, according to the Hartford Courant. "My goal is to see the Livable Communities Act become law before I retire."

Dodd, whose panel has jurisdiction over housing and urban development, is working with that 10-month deadline as he anticipates retiring from Congress at year’s end. His push to create a long-term foundation for the administration’s sustainability effort also could run into resistance from rural lawmakers whose states have tended to benefit from a transportation spending system based on road-mile formulas.

The first stirrings of rural skepticism came on Thursday, when Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) questioned the administration’s move to emphasize "multi-modal" transport projects that would combine roads, transit, and bike-ped access.

Begich asked the U.S. DOT’s No. 2, John Porcari, to make sure that rural states are "not lost in the mix." That sentiment was echoed later in the day by Sen. John Thune (R-SD).

"It seems to me that [the Office of Livable Communities] is a program that’s going to overwhelmingly focus on urban areas," Thune told Porcari during the latter’s appearance before the Senate Commerce Committee, asking if rural states such as his own would "get some assurance or guarantee of funding."

Porcari assured the senators that the administration plans to include rural areas in its sustainability plans, describing the program as an opportunity to restore the "quality of life" once associated with small-town America. Nonetheless, the concerns raised by Begich and Thune could signal more requests for livable communities grants to be distributed among all states, as opposed to the more competitive process the administration has outlined for its first $150 million of funding.

The most significant test of Dodd’s ability to marshal support for his bill authorizing the livable communities office may come later this spring, as lawmakers consider the administration’s request for about $530 million in 2011 funding for the effort. Congress assented to the White House budget request for $150 million in sustainability grants for 2010.