John Mica is conspiring with top GOP leadership to lift transportation funding levels above those outlined in April by Budget Chair Paul Ryan. Photo: Christian Science Monitor.

One Republican source, quoted in Transportation Weekly, said that given the persistently high unemployment rates, the surface transportation bill may become the centerpiece of Republicans’ alternative agenda to the president’s proposed jobs bill.

The House reauthorization bill, introduced by Mica in July, followed the budget plan outlined in April by Rep. Paul Ryan, setting transportation spending at the level expected to come in through Highway Trust Fund revenues over the next six years. Transportation officials, advocates, and Democrats have decried those numbers as spelling starvation for the transportation program, especially for many innovative programs that have been introduced over the last few years.

The appropriations committee followed suit a few week ago, approving spending at those low levels. But by then, Republican leadership was reportedly having second thoughts. Jeff Davis writes:

House Republican leaders privately tried to dissuade the Appropriations Committee from moving a 2012 spending bill with the lower Trust Fund spending numbers, but it would have been awkward for the Speaker or Majority Leader to publicly criticize a Republican committee chairman for writing a bill at the budget level that 235 Republican House members voted for five months previously.

Sources say Mica and Republican leadership are seeking about $15 billion a year in additional revenues, providing a very significant boost to the spending outlined in the reauthorization proposal Mica released in July:

House transportation reauthorization proposal, "A New Direction"

Adding $15 billion to each of those years could allow for spending totals above current baseline numbers of $41.6 billion for highways and $8.4 billion for transit in FY2012. However, it still wouldn’t quite match the Senate proposal, a two-year bill funding the surface transportation program at almost $55 billion a year. (The highway/transit split hasn’t been defined in the Senate bill.) Sen. Barbara Boxer says these levels essentially reflect current spending levels, plus inflation, plus an expanded TIFIA loan program.

Still, Davis writes, finding new revenues will be major challenge. A raise in the gas tax is reportedly off the table, and any new taxes would be difficult to pass – and not just because of the prevailing anti-tax sentiment in Congress. The Transportation Committee doesn’t control taxation, and Davis speculates that any new taxation would likely have to wait until after the deficit-reduction super committee finishes its work, two months from now. And any significant funding source outside of the gas tax and related “user fees” would be a dramatic departure from the traditional way of funding the transportation program.

Top Senate Democrat Harry Reid vows to keep an clean-car subsidy in the budget, come hell or high water. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

After midnight last night, the House finally managed to narrowly pass a budget extension bill, but Senate leaders have already rejected it out of hand, since it includes about half the disaster relief they’d like and cuts $1.5 billion from a clean-fuel technology manufacturing program for the auto industry.

The disagreement is strong enough that it threatens to keep Congress in session longer than intended — likely through the weekend, and possibly even into next week’s scheduled recess.

That gives them a week, if necessary, to avert a government shutdown — the potential consequence of inaction on a bill to extend federal government spending past September 30.

Clean vehicles are great, but if Democrats really want to meet important environmental goals, just imagine how much good they could do by spending that $1.5 billion to implement better bus systems or provide emergency assistance to transit agencies struggling to keep up with higher ridership.

In addition to highlighting how Senate Democrats highly prize car subsidies, this situation also puts in perspective the brewing fight over the FY2012 budget. If Congress can’t even pass a simple extension to keep government operations for a few months, with just a few billion dollars’ difference, how will they ever agree to bridge the enormous gap between their visions for FY2012?

Meanwhile, Congress is learning, or perhaps not learning, that they can’t expect to pass clean extensions at the last minute when they can’t agree or aren’t ready to take a pass new legislation in time for the old legislation to expire. Extensions are rarely “clean” anymore, and the new items in them are often cause for rancorous debate.

Lawmakers are still optimistic that they’ll make a deal, and experts caution against too much hysteria over a possible government shutdown, since every budget vote in recent memory has gone down to the wire, and somehow lawmakers always figure something out, usually without missing any of their recess time. In comparison with some of those epic fights, this skirmish over a few billion dollars seems easily solved.

However, it does remind us of a similar situation earlier this year, when the country found itself on the brink of a shutdown. Streetsblog asked transportation agencies and industry officials what a shutdown would mean for them. AASHTO said states wouldn’t be able to get reimbursed for transportation spending, totaling about $100 million a day. An official from Dallas Area Rapid Transit said a shutdown would only present a serious problem if it dragged on for months, but the agency could handle a few weeks without federal reimbursements. Construction industry leaders, already fed up with inaction on Capitol Hill from the two-year delay in passing a new transportation bill, seemed resigned to coping with the problems Washington presents them.

Senator Dick Durbin, co-chair of the High-Speed Rail Caucus, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ride a high-speed train in China. Photo from Reid's Flickr photostream

That’s still starvation wages for the program, but it’s at least a placeholder that keeps it limping along. The move was spearheaded by four Democratic senators — Dick Durbin of Illinois, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Dianne Feinstein of California and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — who introduced the successful amendment to reallocate some funds earmarked for highway and transit projects to high-speed rail.

“I offered this amendment because we can’t turn our backs on a project that will invest in the future and put Californians back to work,” Feinstein said in a statement.

“Every dollar we spend on rail produces $3 in economic output,” added Senator Durbin, a founding member of the Bi-Cameral High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Caucus. “Congress has maintained a commitment to high speed and intercity rail for over a decade. This amendment will continue that commitment.”

Highway funding in the Senate bill stays at FY2011 levels, but the chamber added another $358 million for the New Starts program for transit capital investments, previously funded at $8.3 billion. The House budget would reduce New Starts to $5.3 billion.

TIGER got a little bump too, with the Senate raising the allocation from $527 million to $550 million. Of that, $120 million is reserved for rural communities. The third round of TIGER grant applications is currently underway.

The Senate-passed budget keeps $90 million for the tri-agency Partnership for Sustainable Communities (down from $100 million in 2011), a victory for livability advocates and anyone who prefers federal collaboration and efficiency over stovepipes and silos.

The bill also includes $25 million for energy efficiency improvements for transit systems to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. And the Washington metro system, always threatened with federal cuts, comes away with $150 million for capital investments, with a focus on safety.

These numbers are by no means final. They vary widely from the FY2012 budget the House passed two weeks ago. At some point, the two chambers will have to find a compromise between two significantly different funding proposals, but for now, they’re just trying to figure out an extension (or “continuing resolution”) of the current year’s budget in order to keep government programs funded past September 30. Last night’s vote in the House failed dramatically, with both Democrats and Tea Party Republican dissenting.

Both chambers are supposed to be on recess next week, but leadership might require members to stay in Washington, at least through the weekend, to hammer out a deal if they can’t work one out by the end of the this week. Congress doesn’t normally vote on Fridays, either, so many lawmakers are hoping for progress today so they can return to their districts.

President Obama said he won't accept spending cuts without tax increases. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In a speech last Thursday, Boehner ruled out any form of tax increase as the deficit reduction “super committee” decides how to meet its mandate. “When it comes to producing savings to reach its $1.5 trillion deficit reduction target, the Joint Select Committee has only one option,” he said, “spending cuts and entitlement reform.”

President Obama went to the mat this morning for a different approach to cutting the deficit. He presented his own plan, which includes some spending cuts and policy changes to Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to other programs. But the centerpiece is the elimination of corporate tax loopholes and of tax cuts for the wealthy.

“I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share,” Obama said. “We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks that are most vulnerable.”

There are many plans on the table right now, both to increase spending and to cut it. The president released his deficit reduction plan, in part, to explain how to pay for his job creation bill, which includes $50 billion for transportation infrastructure and $10 to capitalize a national infrastructure bank.

But the House has already passed about half the appropriations bills for next year, spelling out dramatic budget cuts in line with Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposals from the spring. There have also been a few spending-cut agreements, including the ones last April that saved the government from an imminent shutdown. And at the end of July, there was another round that saved the country from imminent default, as our debt limit neared expiration. The “super committee” (aka “Joint Select Committee”) formed by that agreement is tasked with another round of work to reduce the deficit. That’s the committee which Boehner is forbidding to raise taxes, and which Obama is now forbidding not to.

We’ve been saying for a long time that spending cuts won’t lay the tracks for a 21st century, sustainable transportation system. Any real solution to the dwindling Highway Trust Fund will have to include new revenues – specifically, a higher gas tax indexed to inflation, or even better, a vehicle-miles-traveled fee.

After a barrage of spending cuts since the Republicans gained control of the House — and the threat of more cuts from the super committee, the House Transportation Committee’s six-year reauthorization proposal, and the 2012 budget – it’s good to see the president using some political capital to say that he’s not willing to cut essential programs to the bone.

Over the weekend, the House and Senate decided to combine the long-overdue FAA reauthorization with the pending surface transportation bill, considering them together as one uniform transportation extension [PDF]. The FAA bill will be extended for four months, while SAFETEA-LU will be extended for six, with an expiration date of March 31.

As an added bonus, combining the bill with the FAA means that Congress can’t keep us in suspense until the last possible moment, as they’ve been prone to do lately. (Remember the debt ceiling? Remember the narrowly-averted government shutdown last spring?) The FAA extension expires September 16, so if Congress is to extend them together, they’ll have to act by the end of this week, instead of waiting till the end of next week, when they leave for another recess. The House is tentatively planning to vote on the bill tomorrow.

The extension is a clean one, with no changes in policy. That means bike/ped funding, which has been under threat over the last week, will remain for the next six months, at least. And the extension will be funded by the same 18.4 cent federal gas tax the U.S. has had since 1993, which was also due to expire September 30 and which is also renewed by this action.

The extension will stick to current funding levels, authorizing $24.78 billion in spending from the Highway Trust Fund for the first half of FY2012 (which begins October 1). That’s almost $19.8 billion for highways and $4.2 billion for transit.

That’s far more than the FY2012 budget just passed by the Transportation and HUD Appropriations subcommittee in the House, which agreed to $27.7 billion for highways and $5.2 billion for transit for the entire year. Although this extension can authorize more spending than that, actual spending levels are up to the appropriators, according to Jeff Davis at Transportation Weekly. Experts say that at this level, most of the money would go to pay states back for projects already built, and new highway project funding could be cut by as much as 75 percent.

But higher spending levels also have their down side. “Maintaining current highway and transit spending levels for any period of time deepens the Highway Trust Fund’s revenue hole,” writes Jeff Davis, noting that according to the CBO, “the Highway Account of the Trust Fund will run out of cash at these spending levels in the first few months of calendar year 2013, with the Mass Transit Account running dry a year or so behind that).”

Davis also notes that “bringing the extension bill to a vote in the House will require the House to vote to waive the budget totals in the Ryan budget plan, which will likely bring some opposition from conservative Republicans.”

The extension bill the EPW Committee passed last week included a $3.13 billion rescission, meaning that even though it provided $43 billion, more than $3 billion of that would need to be returned by the states. This new extension bill takes that “rescission” out of the total up front, lowering the $43 billion to just under $40 billion for the year.

Senator Boxer has raised an objection to the $3 billion cut, even though the front-end budget cut isn’t much different from her own back-end rescission. Davis speculates that this is because the EPW two-year bill seeks to hold current spending levels, but if current spending levels are lowered in this way, the EPW bill would actually represent an increase.

In Boxer’s statement, she also expressed her pleasure that the House is moving forward with an extension with current spending levels, which is what she has supported for both the extension and the full reauthorizations. “The original House proposal would have cut spending by more than 30 percent, which would threaten hundreds of thousands of construction workers’ jobs and thousands of businesses,” she said.

She also said she welcomes the longer extension “because it gives more certainty to the private sector and to states and local governments in their plans for road and transportation projects.”

However, pushing the expiration so far into next year makes it even more likely it will be followed by nothing but another extension, not an actual reauthorization. Both parties will be loath to pass a big spending bill so close to a presidential election.

Sen. James Inhofe still wants to kill bike/ped funding — but later. Photo: TPM/wdcpix

And yesterday, as frazzled Senators rushed around the Capitol during their first day of legislative work after the August recess, the reality began to set in that the clock is ticking to pass an extension before the surface transportation programs expire on September 30.

In addition to passing the extension this morning, Boxer’s committee has also been crafting a two-year, $109 billion reauthorization that would keep spending at current levels.

Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, the ranking member on the committee, voted for the clean four-month extension, saying it will buy the time needed to craft the two-year bill. He says he won’t support Sen. Tom Coburn’s push to kill transportation enhancement funding, which includes bicycle and pedestrian projects – for now. But when it comes to the two-year bill, Inhofe would like to say goodbye to all bike/ped projects.

“I’m all for totally cutting the transportation enhancement funding,” he said in an interview with Streetsblog. “I’ve talked to Senator Boxer about it and I think we can come up with something where we do away with those enhancements.”

Boxer has pledged to maintain dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs in the bill.

Inhofe did acknowledge, however, that TE comprises “less than 2 percent [of the transportation program], instead of the 10 percent that some people think it is.” (Coburn is one of those people.)

Dr. No paints a bullseye on bike/ped funding. Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images

Now Dr. No has his sights set on bicycle and pedestrian funding.

As calls for a “clean” extension to SAFETEA-LU poured in, Coburn made it clear last week he won’t get with the program. His spokesperson announced that Coburn would try to block the extension if Transportation Enhancements weren’t removed from the bill.

About two percent of the federal transportation budget goes to TE, and of that, 57 percent goes to bike/ped projects, with the rest funding streetscaping, historic preservation and other programs.

The GOP rallying cry against the miniscule amount of money for bicycle and pedestrian improvements is metastasizing. Earlier we reported that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was urging that dedicated funding for Transportation Enhancements be eliminated. And today, Cantor, along with House Speaker John Boehner, sent a letter to President Obama with the same demand:

We are not opposed to initiatives to repair and improve infrastructure, and believe there are reforms that can be implemented that would improve their effectiveness in a manner that supports economic growth. Current law requires that states set-aside 10 percent of their surface transportation funds for transportation enhancements, which must be used for items such as establishment of transportation museums, education activities for pedestrians and bicyclists, acquisition of scenic easements, historic preservation, operation of historic transportation facilities, etc. While many of the initiatives funded by this mandatory set-aside may be worthy projects, eliminating this required set-aside would allow states to devote more money to the types of infrastructure programs you are advocating without adding to the deficit. We believe such a reform would be consistent with your statement last week that we should “reform the way transportation money is invested, to eliminate waste, to give states more control over the projects that are right for them.”

Boehner and Cantor also hoped to find common ground with the president on speeding up reviews of infrastructure projects.

It’s hard to underestimate the damage that this Republican movement against TE can do. It will certainly complicate the passage of an extension of SAFETEA-LU, meaning that Sen. Coburn, and possibly other members of Congress, are declaring their willingness to throw the entire transportation industry, as well as commuters, under the bus while they quibble about the pennies spent on bike paths. According to the White House, if the bill is delayed just 10 days, the country would lose over $1 billion in transportation funding — “money we can never get back.”

How many senators will risk this kind of fallout by standing up for bike/ped funding?

Extensions used to be employed in order to buy more time so that lawmakers could debate policy changes. Now, policy changes are demanded in order to just buy more time. It’s in this frenzied, time-strapped atmosphere that Congress will decide over the next two weeks whether or not to kill federal support for active transportation programs.

Eric Cantor's bold new compromise on infrastructure? Just Republican talking points. Photo: John Shinkle / Politico

Is he offering to increase spending levels over the starvation program being proposed by Republicans on the House Transportation Committee? No. Is he proposing to include performance measures, making sure that investments contribute to national transportation priorities? No. Is he baldly trying to eliminate bike/ped funding from the budget? You got it.

Cantor’s “compromise” is already a plank of the Transportation Committee’s plan. Cantor, and Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) want to “eliminat[e] the requirement that states must set aside 10 percent of federal surface transportation funds for transportation museums, education, and preservation would allow states to devote these monies to high-priority infrastructure projects, without adding to the deficit.”

The pot of money he’s proposing to eliminate is called Transportation Enhancements, and the primary way the federal government supports active transportation. Republicans have been using the “10 percent” figure to drum up indignation over the “misuse” of transportation funds, but it’s important to note that Transportation Enhancements make up 10 percent of the surface transportation program, which is less than a quarter of the entire federal aid highway program. Enhancements actually make up about two percent of all federal highway aid.

That’s two percent for biking and walking, which together make up 12 percent of trips. Larry Ehl of Transportation Issues Daily predicted yesterday that bike/ped funding — even though it represents a tiny proportion of the total transportation tab — would be a stumbling block in extending the current transportation bill. Indeed, it’s a major point of contention in debates over the whole bill.

It’s ridiculous, given that the vast majority of the bill is still for highways. But here comes Eric Cantor, trotting out party-line gimmicks and convincing the media it’s a breakthrough.

Know what would be a real breakthrough, Mr. Cantor? When Congress comes back into session tomorrow, pass a clean extension of SAFETEA-LU without any strings attached or budget cuts required. Then work with the Senate to pass its bipartisan bill, which itself is the product of serious compromise with some of the most conservative members of the Republican party. The bill holds spending at current levels, plus inflation; it agrees with the House on a major expansion of the TIFIA loan program; it includes some performance measures; and it preserves dedicated funding for bike/ped. Now what’s so hard about that?

The clock is ticking for Congress to extend the transportation bill, the federal budget, and the gas tax. Image: Ananse Productions

Congress will also have to dodge expected Tea Party assaults on what should be a routine extension of the federal gas tax. And as if that weren’t enough, members have to concern themselves with the small detail of the federal budget: The 2011 fiscal year ends September 30 too. And passing new budgets hasn’t been an easy — or timely — task of late.

To add a sort of slapstick hilarity to the urgency of addressing these three major issues before the end of the month, Congress is taking off for another district work period September 23, making that the effective deadline for all of these actions. That gives members 11 work days to solve all of these problems (given that Congress is rarely in session on Mondays).

Considering the fact that the country didn’t have a 2011 budget until halfway through the fiscal year, we can assume no one on the Hill is sweating too hard about the September deadline, but missing it won’t be as easy as it used to be. Where Congress used to pass “clean” extensions of old budgets and policies when they were late in coming up with new ones, the House lately has been insisting on spending cuts even just to pass an extension. Note that an extension is what you do when you can’t agree on things like, for example, spending cuts. So waiting till the last minute to even talk about an extension of the federal budget is risky business these days.

That goes for transportation too. According to the Transport Topics Publishing Group, House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica has now said that he will support an extension to the current transportation authorization. Up until now, he had stayed focused on the passage of a six-year bill, declining to talk about interim options. But Transport Topics quoted committee spokesperson Justin Harclerode saying that while the committee continues to work on a long-term reauthorization, “it will also support an extension of expiring authority as necessary.” Senate leaders are reportedly willing to pass a six-month extension of SAFETEA-LU to keep the transportation program rolling.

The chambers will need time to hammer out some sort of agreement on their competing versions of the reauthorization: a two-year bill at current funding levels (plus inflation) from the Senate, with money for bicycle and pedestrian projects, or a six-year bill from the House which cuts funding across the board by about a third and dedicates no money for active transportation.

But how much time? A six month extension would just kick the can further into the realm of the presidential election season. Passing an infrastructure bill used to be the sort of popular thing you could do at any point to gain support, but any kind of spending bill these days is a political minefield on Capitol Hill, and many members on both sides would rather have it over with well before the next election.

The other major question is whether Republicans will try to extract concessions in exchange for a transportation extension, the way they did with the federal budget extensions last spring. In the case that they try to demand spending cuts, even a temporary extension will become a fight.

Streetsblog has requested more information from aides in both houses, but most likely the path forward won’t start becoming clear until Congress gets back next week.

Building America's Future's words, not ours! Source: BAF, via USDOT.

Building America’s Future, led by former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has added their voice to the chorus calling for greater investment in U.S. infrastructure, lest the country fall behind its global competitors. In a new report, Falling Apart and Falling Behind, BAF recommends more focus on mass transit, a switch away from formula funding without performance requirements, and more emphasis on metropolitan areas.

A couple weeks ago, we took some heat from some of you, dear readers, about our coverage of a somewhat similar report from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Indeed, that report called for more infrastructure spending, but without specific recommendations on how to build a bettertransportation system. Charles Marohn at Strong Towns wrote a scathing critique of the report, questioning the urgent need to “spend trillions to save seconds” of commute time – especially the assertion that the U.S. should spend $2.2 trillion in order to save $1.0 trillion. Marohn went on to say:

At Strong Towns, we want our infrastructure maintained. In fact, it’s the common denominator of a Strong Town. But the reason why we can’t maintain our infrastructure is not because we lack the money or are afraid to spend it. It is because the systems we have built and the decisions we’ve made on what is a good investment are based on the kind of ridiculous math you see reflected in this ASCE report. We spend a billion here and a billion there and we get nothing but a couple minutes shaved off of our commutes, which just means we can build more roads and live further away from where we work. (Or, as we call that here in America: growth.)

Well put. And we’re glad to see that today’s contribution to the infrastructure debate goes deeper than the ASCE report in recommending concrete ways to build smarter, not just more.

Building America’s Future urges more spending, but says that to do it right, funding priorities should adhere to national strategies. And they’re not shy about spelling out what those are: more economic growth and mobility, less congestion and pollution. “Largely run on gasoline, our transportation system is environmentally, politically, and economically unsustainable,” they write.

Source: BAF via World Economic Forum.

To achieve those goals, BAF urges the federal government to redirect spending toward the 100 metropolitan areas that generate 75 percent of U.S. GDP, especially investing in their mass transit systems. BAF wants to “re-focus highway investment on projects of national economic significance,” including a fix-it-first priority that Rendell says should be built into law. BAF would invest in high-speed rail, but they join Republicans in criticizing the Obama approach of spreading the dollars too thinly around the country. Building America’s Future would focus on three key corridors: Boston to Washington, L.A. to San Francisco, and a hub-and-spoke system around Chicago.

As for how to pay for it, they unabashedly call for raising the gas tax and indexing it to inflation, pointing out that U.S. consumers spend way too little on gasoline, compared with other developed countries, with far too low of a gas tax, which can’t even begin to pay for the negative externalities of fossil fuels. “As high as gas prices in the U.S. seem today, they do not even fully account for the true cost of driving in terms of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” the report says. “In the interest of our own environmental sustainability and national security, we should consider the ways in which other countries’ taxes discourage overreliance on gasoline.”

BAF also seeks a shift toward longer-term solutions like a VMT fee, congestion pricing, and increased tolling, as well as establishing a national infrastructure bank, making TIGER permanent and expanding TIFIA. They emphasize the need to foster, not suppress, local innovation in the way that those programs do. Their zeal for public-private partnerships appears more tempered than some, and they call for an examination of best practices for PPPs – a recent focus among some constituencies that fear that PPPs can privatize profits while socializing risk.

All of these moves would finally yank our transportation system out of the Eisenhower age, Building America’s Future asserts. While some road-gang types wouldn’t mind staying in the Eisenhower age forever, more and more unlikely allies are popping up all over, realizing that building roads can’t cure congestion.

The report focuses on the United States’ freefall in global rankings of infrastructure, with the World Economic Forum rating us first in the world for the competitiveness of our infrastructure in 2005 and 15th today. And in his remarks to reporters, Rendell gave a good amount of airtime to the need to move metallurgical coal to ports as fast as Australia does. But the real strength of the BAF report is that it goes beyond a mere cry for more spending, as the ASCE report did. It says that without spending that money strategically, to reduce pollution, increase connectivity, maintain a state of good repair, and strengthen metropolitan areas, more spending isn’t enough.

This old steel industry bridge in Pittsburgh was transformed into a bike-ped bridge using $6.5 million in federal money from Transportation Enhancements, a dedicated pot of money for biking and walking. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

From what we hear from Sen. Barbara Boxer’s staff, the EPW bill includes dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects. The House bill does not, though it does say that bike-ped projects will still be “eligible” for various pots of funding.

But “eligibility” is virtually meaningless without a federal mandate for spending. As the League of American Bicyclists points out in a new fact-sheet on eligibility, history shows that if the federal government tells states they “can” spend money on bike-ped – but they don’t have to – they don’t.

Indeed, all 50 states together spent just $40 million on bike-ped programs in the 18 years leading up to the passage of ISTEA in 1991, which created the three major sources of bike-ped funding. The states had complete freedom to use federal funds – with no state match – on bike-ped projects, but they simply didn’t.

Even today, programs that would appear to be tailor-made to fund bicycle and pedestrian projects – like the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ) – are rarely used on biking and walking. Only five percent of CMAQ money has gone toward biking and walking, despite their “eligibility” and obvious fit. When advocates talk about “dedicated funding,” they’re usually talking about three other programs, which spend more on bike-ped: Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School, and the Recreational Trails Program.

What’s more, states tend to spend bike-ped money slowly, holding onto those funds until rescission time, when they’re asked to send money back to the federal government. Last year, Transportation Enhancements and CMAQ bore 44 percent of the rescission cuts nationwide – although those programs represent just 7.3 percent of total federal-aid highway funds.

Many states continue to express distaste for the federal mandate for bike-ped spending. Some states-rights supporters say states should be able to spend money on the programs they want, and not be forced by “Washington bureaucrats” to pay for projects their states don’t need.

But state DOTs can be just as bureaucratic and unaccountable to local-level needs as the feds.

“Many state DOTs are stuck in the 1950s,” said Darren Flusche, policy analyst at the League. “Without this kind of federal guidance, they’ll continue to be out of touch with the transportation needs of the 21st century.”

Besides, he added, the federal transportation bill isn’t about local control — it’s about setting federal transportation policy in accordance with national transportation priorities.

And even where state DOTs are pooh-poohing bike-ped projects and refusing to spend money on them, the cities inside those states are hungry for them. Indeed, according to the League report, 60 percent of the nation’s mayors want more bike-ped funding to help fight congestion and to improve livability and economic competitiveness.

Given the high demand for bicycle and pedestrian improvements – and the tight fist of state DOTs – funding for these programs has had to come from other sources. Those sources have included Congressional earmarks (now banned), the stimulus (now over), and TIGER grants (thankfully, onto its third round).

State DOTs have to return funding to the feds, and programs to improve biking and walking are especially at risk of getting scaled back. Photo: Tanya Snyder

But here's what’s getting bicycle and transit advocates worried: This time, the money could come disproportionately from bike and pedestrian improvements.

“This is different from the other rescissions in a few ways,” said Caron Whitaker of America Bikes. “One, the other rescissions were subject to a proportionality clause to ensure that certain programs weren’t hit disproportionately, because they had been cut disproportionately in earlier rescissions. Two, this doesn’t cover same breadth of programs as the other ones did.”

Off-limits this time around are funds for the Highway Safety Improvement Program, the Railway-Highway Crossings Program, the Surface Transportation Program, and Safe Routes to Schools.

That means there are fewer programs left on the chopping block, increasing the chances that bicycling and transit programs will be affected -- and there are no rules saying state DOTs have to play fair.

That’s what makes this a particularly scary rescission cycle. It’s not the biggest bite -- last year states were faced with rescissions four times this size -- but some advocates see bull’s-eyes painted on programs that invest in non-automotive modes.

“We’ve seen New York state, for example, rescind a disproportionate amount out of some programs we really like, like CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program) and [transportation] enhancements,” said Michelle Ernst of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

The rescinded money comes out of states’ “unobligated balances” -- money that’s been authorized but hasn’t been spent yet. Ernst says it makes sense to take it out of the National Highway System instead of bicycle and pedestrian programs. If nothing else, it makes things simpler.

“The other advantage of cutting it from a road program versus a bike program,” Ernst said, “is that bike programs tend to be much less expensive. So you may have to cut or postpone ten separate bike projects in order to meet that rescission, whereas maybe you have to postpone just one road project.”

The feds are encouraging state DOTs to listen to stakeholders when making these hard decisions. Local bicycle advocacy groups, like WABA in Washington, DC, are trying to make sure their voices are heard.

“There is direction from Federal Highway to the states encouraging outreach to stakeholders, but not requiring,” says WABA Director Shane Farthing. “People should contact state level DOT folks and their governor or mayor.”

Time is of the essence. States have only until August 25 to decide what stays and what goes.

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."

A sample image of Philadelphia’s proposed "green corridors." (Image: Lomo Civic Assn.)

Testifying on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Nutter singled out his city’s "complete streets"
policy as a key element of the local revitalization that has attracted
more private investment and new residents to Philadelphia:

Over
the past five decades, Philadelphia lost jobs and residents. The pulls
that caused people to leave our city and others like it were driven in
part by government policies that valued highways over transit and new
tract housing over older row homes. But, in recent years, Philadelphia
has begun to witness a rebirth… people and jobs are moving in and
private investments are being made. People again view our walkable
neighborhoods and public transportation systems as assets to value and
nurture.

Nutter also described a series of
sustainable infrastructure projects that his city is prepared to launch
once long-term funding is secured. The Senate climate bill sets up a
new block grant program that would provide that long-term funding,
directing money to metro areas for energy efficiency and conservation
projects.

Among the Philadelphia proposals mentioned by
Nutter were the city’s "green corridors" program — now in line for a
$6 million pilot phase — that would install landscaped sidewalks to
collect storm water as well as new energy-efficient streetlights and
traffic signals. A parallel effort, known as "green streets," would
increase tree cover and install curb bump-outs with sidewalk planters
to decrease heat-trapping.

"Our experience… is
characteristic of so many cities that are moving forward with these
investments," Nutter told the Senate environment committee, which will hear from more than two dozen witnesses today alone.

Republican
witnesses offered a counterpoint to the urban experience, focusing
almost exclusively on the high cost that regulating emissions would
impose on traditional fossil fuel-burning industries.

"We
are in favor of green jobs but not at the expense of the heartland, of
red, white, and blue jobs," Bill Klesse, CEO of oil company Valero,
told the environment panel.

Today’s hearing can be followed live here, courtesy of the committee.

The Congress for the New Urbanism will meet in Portland, Oregon, in early November for the annual Project for Transportation Reform, a summit to further define and clarify emerging urban transportation policies that embrace entire networks, rather than interdependent transportation segments, and that seek to balance modal transportation splits and reduce overall vehicular miles traveled (VMT).

Summit attendees and partners, including Streetsblog, will participate in discussions on emerging network planning and develop a strategy for informing the national transportation infrastructure debate, of particular significance as the climate and transportation bills move forward. As the draft CNU Statement of Principles on Transportation Networks notes [PDF], climate change and infrastructure problems in the US continue to intensify:

The US now has the world’s highest level of VMT per capita, while simultaneously experiencing the highest traffic fatality rates of any developed nation. Per capita traffic delay has more than doubled in the United States since 1982. This deterioration in transportation system performance has occurred in spite of an ongoing public investment of more that $200 billion per year in transportation infrastructure."

CNU President John Norquist said the current focus by transportation professionals on road capacity gives us cities like Detroit, where consistent spending to widen roads has destroyed communities.

"Federal and state DOTs don't understand how cities work. They still want to take rural forms and jam big roads into cities." he said. "Rather than measuring projected traffic flow, they should be measuring how much value it adds to a neighborhood. The US can't afford to be energy wasting and spending money on projects that destroy the value of neighborhoods."

U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer will kick off the summit and representatives from Oregon Metro will showcase the many innovative transportation and design policies they have implemented in the region that have given Portland one of the highest walking, transit, and bicycle mode shares in the country.

Summit organizers hope to develop the language around network-wide transportation reform so the CNU can persuade lawmakers in Washington DC to incorporate this new urban vision into upcoming climate and transportation legislation.

Marcy McInelly, co-chair of the CNU's transportation reform initiatives and principle of Sera Architects, said, "Reform is about giving more latitude to use highway funds for pieces of the network that may not be for highways. Right now the federal funds have to increase vehicular mobility, which raises VMT. If you had a funding formula that allowed you to count benefits to cost, it would almost always [result in] the other modes besides cars coming out more beneficial.  It would balance consideration of other modes."

Norquist said the CNU is working with the Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE), the most significant body of professional transportation engineers in the country, to develop transportation standards that ennoble urban streets alongside rural roads and freeways in guides like AASHTO's Green Book for highway and street design.

According to Norquist, reform initiatives should focus on altering "the functional classification system. The current regulatory framework tries to feed future traffic demand, instead of trying to facilitate the network." 

Referring to the traditional advocacy position that tries to chip away at the 80-20 funding formula (80 percent of federal funding for freeways, 20 percent for transit), Norquist said a more fundamental change is needed.

"We're completely for the idea of changing the 80-20 split. But even if the environmental community wins and gets 25-75, you're still spending 75 percent of the money on road capacity. They should focus on creating roads that are useful and pleasant and create a place where people actually want to be."

Norquist also promised the conference would be fun. "This conference will have the most dynamic and exciting traffic engineers in the world," he said, with a laugh. "These are the reform traffic engineers, the recovering traffic engineers."

The Project for Transportation Reform with take place from November 4-6 and registration is still open.  Streetsblog will be covering the summit with regular stories and tweets, so stay tuned.

SamTrans - the buses and paratransit vehicles that run the length of El Camino Real between Palo Alto and Daly City, traverse the Santa Cruz mountains, and service San Francisco's financial district - is preparing to raise fares and reduce service on some bus lines and eliminate other lines in order to close a $28.4 million budget gap.

SamTrans serves more than 15 million riders annually through its 339 regular buses and its Redi-Wheels and RediCoast (Paratransit) vehicles. Its fixed-route bus system currently consists of 54 routes.

The financial crisis forced SamTrans Deputy CEO Chuck Harvey to present several options to close the gap at a San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors meeting August 12 and arrive at a preliminary operating budget of $136.5 million for the 2010 fiscal year.

Harvey presented options for achieving 7.5 percent, 10 percent, and 15 percent savings. "To get to 15 percent savings, it's wholesale amputation," he said.

To achieve 15 percent savings Harvey proposed: reducing service on up to 22 lines and eliminating 17 lines; increasing adult, youth, and discounted fares by 25 cents or more; and eliminating the 15 percent discount on the SamTrans pass with the purchase of a Muni sticker.

"It is indeed a cruel twist of fate that brings us here today," said Board of Directors Chairwoman Zoe Kersteen-Tucker. "More than ever, we need to reduce our dependence on cars, yet we are facing a significant crushing deficit, and we cannot look to the state to help us out at least for the next four years."

Citizens argued for the retention of affordable fares and the routes they depend on. Laura Loringer, a disabled bus rider, testified on behalf of herself and other disabled riders, urging SamTrans not to raise fares for the disabled. "Some of us are on fixed incomes," she said.

"What is Schwarzenegger doing to us?" asked William Farrell, another disabled rider. "We need these buses. For the love of God, make the right choices."

The current cost of a discounted monthly pass is $22. The proposed cost is $32.

The transit agency's budget problem has also been compounded by the loss of $39.2 million from the State Transit Assistance fund, which was gutted by Governor Schwarzenegger and the Legislature.

Other members of the public testified on behalf of public school students and community college students who depend on the buses to get their schools or out of concern for the environment.

"The express bus service is one of the most effective methods for improving air quality," testified Amir Fanai, a San Mateo County resident. For four years, Fanai has been taking the NX express bus from Redwood Shores to his job with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in San Francisco, but the NX is now on the chopping block. "By eliminating the NX, many fellow passengers would have to drive," he said.

Fanai has also written to President Barack Obama asking that stimulus money be released for the operational costs of transit agencies.

According to Randy Rentschler, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area has received a total of about $500 million in transportation stimulus dollars, $340 million of which has gone to transit. According to SamTrans Public Information Officer Christine Dunn, SamTrans received $7.8 million. Three million of that has been set aside for new buses, $4 million for maintenance, and $788,000 for paratransit buses - and none of those monies have been directly put into operations.

Michael Dolder, interim city manager for Half Moon Bay, questioned whether or not the agency had complied with the California Environmental Quality Act and the MTC Regional Transportation Plan 2035. Dolder was particularly concerned about proposals to eliminate the 17 line which runs between Montara State Beach and Santa Cruz, and is one of only two lines to serve the coast side of San Mateo County south of Pacifica.

"After a thorough review," he wrote in a letter to the Board of Directors, "staff has concluded that the document does not provide sufficient factual and scientific data to support the decision to adopt a negative declaration for this project."

However, BART Board Director and Livably City Executive Director Tom Radulovich said CEQA "is a strange document" and "not a very good planning tool if you're trying to plan for sustainability."

CEQA, he noted, is weak in terms of the evaluation of carbon dioxide emissions, and performance for transit riders, and it permits exemptions for transit agencies that declare fiscal emergencies such as the San Mateo County Transit District and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (Muni).

The public can submit comments to the SamTrans Board of Directors until September 2 at changes@samtrans.com.

But that doesn’t mean the proposal, otherwise known as "CLEAN TEA," is losing momentum.

The bill, introduced by Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Arlen Specter (D-PA), picked up three new co-sponsors in the Senate yesterday. Its five supporters all sit on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which will get first crack at climate legislation in September.

So
who’s still dragging their feet on giving 10 percent of the climate
bill’s funding to green transportation? (The House-passed climate bill,
by comparison, allows only 1 percent of revenue to pay for transport improvements. Meanwhile, transportation generates about 30 percent of U.S. emissions.)

Find out after the jump.

The
Senate environment committee has 19 members, five of whom have already
signed on to "CLEAN TEA": Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Frank Lautenberg
(D-NJ), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Carper, and Specter.

Given that even Republicans who acknowledge the threat of human-caused climate change are lining up to oppose a cap-and-trade system, it’s reasonable to expect that no one on the GOP side is prepared to back "CLEAN TEA."

That
leaves seven senators who have not signed on to the bill; if Carper and
Specter can sway five of them, that would theoretically give the bill a
10-9 advantage. Here are the seven:

• Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), an avowed transit booster
• Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has long recognized transit’s role in fighting climate change
• Tom Udall (D-NM), another transit fan
• Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the Senate’s voice for "sustainable communities" legislation
• Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who helped the White House tout her home state’s transit in March
• Max Baucus (D-MT)
• Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chairman of the Senate environment committee (Photo: Politics Now)

"Everyone realizes the current law is inadequate to get the job done," said Voinovich, who has aligned with Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and his House transportation committee to fight the White House and Senate on the extension.

"We have a Senate and we have a House ... what I'm proposing here is something very reasonable."

Voinovich's compromise won support from three Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (MN), whose panel has the tricky task of approving $20 billion in spending cuts or offsets to keep the nation's highway trust fund flush until after the 2010 midterm elections.

But the 12-month proposal fell on an 8-11 vote, with environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) offering Voinovich a contrite birthday consolation and a promise to tackle a "transformational" transportation bill -- once the thorny question of revenue is sorted out.

"There is way less of a chance that, if we go 18 months, we'll have to do another extension," Boxer said. Though "I respect, like, love" Oberstar, the chairman added, "in order to meet his six-year bill, you'd have to double the gas tax."

Boxer has said she is open to indexing the gas tax, which has gone untouched by Washington since 1993, to inflation. Any increases, however, face an uphill battle winning over re-election-minded lawmakers.

The 18-month extension must be merged with corresponding legislation from the Senate Commerce and Banking Committees before heading to the Finance panel for its revenue portion to be completed.

Yet the bill appears set to founder in the House, given Oberstar's fierce opposition, leaving Congress without a clear path on transportation policy and only three weeks to go to meet the U.S. DOT's deadline for bailing out the highway trust fund.