Streetsblog San Francisco

As I climbed the steps out of the Lake Merritt BART station this morning I heard loud chanting. "Wow," I thought, "those bicyclists have really pulled out the troops!" But the demonstrators that greeted me across 8th Street in Oakland were pile drivers, iron workers, carpenters and other trades workers, chanting "Jobs for Oakland Now!" Not far from their boisterous demonstration in front of the main doors of the Joseph Brot Metro Center were a few cyclists showing their signs to passersby, "Bridge the Gap Now" "All the Way Across the Bay" and "Safety Path!" Across the street, Transform and Urban Habitat were also making their presence felt, opposing the Oakland Airport Connector that the building trades unionists were clamoring for.

Democracy in action, I suppose. Long-time bicycle advocates from the East Bay and San Francisco converged on this meeting, hoping to convince the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) to support using some of the new tolls ($5 on all bridges as of July 1, with $6 congestion pricing on the Bay Bridge during rush hour, and for the first time, a half-price toll for carpoolers) to fund a new west-span bicycle/pedestrian/maintenance/safety lane to make the bridge safer, and to finish the transbay route for bicyclists and pedestrians too, not just motorized vehicles. But that effort was bureaucratically sidetracked before this meeting even started.

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Lawmakers on the House transportation committee today greeted details of the Obama administration’s transit safety plan
with approval, but some sounded skeptical notes about the costs of
state compliance with new federal rules even as transit agencies cope
with billions of dollars in maintenance and repair backlogs.

Rep.
Pete DeFazio (D-OR), chairman of the committee’s transit panel, opened
today’s hearing by citing Federal Transit Administration (FTA) data
that showed nearly 40 percent of state transit safety overseers lacking
the authority to inspect rail tracks.

"There is no substitute for physical inspection of rail lines," DeFazio said. "My concern is if
the FTA is prohibited from inspecting rail transit systems and 40 percent of
states aren’t allowed to perform inspections, then who is ensuring
that these systems are safe?"

Transport
committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) added FTA numbers of his own,
noting that only 15 percent of state safety overseers are allowed to
fine transit agencies that are found to be violating safety standards.

"That’s a pretty dismal record," he said. "Anyone who says the federal government shouldn’t be engaged
here because states are doing such a great job, take a look at these numbers."

Yet
both senior Democrats noted the tension between asking the 26 state
transit safety groups currently in operation to meet minimum training
and oversight standards — as the White House’s proposed legislation
envisions — while the nation’s biggest transit agencies cope with
unmet equipment repair needs that are estimated at upwards of $50 billion.

The transit safety legislation [PDF],
which was transmitted to congressional leaders yesterday, would allow
states to keep their current transit oversight structure as long as
federal regulators find that it meets a minimum safety threshold.
States would receive federal aid to defray the costs of hiring and
training safety inspectors, as well as achieving financial independence
from the transit agencies they monitor.

"We are trying to
give the states every tool we have" to create a nationwide floor for
transit safety, FTA chief Peter Rogoff told lawmakers today. "We also
reserve the right to find the system they have inadequate."

The
FTA was prohibited from setting national transit safety under a 1965
law that was modified in 1991, when Congress created an oversight
system that allowed flexible state standards for light rail and
subways. Some state groups, such as those in New York and
Massachusetts, have maintained independent and active oversight, but
other transit safety entities — Washington D.C.’s, most notably — have been exposed as toothless.

During
today’s hearing, several transportation committee members pressed
Rogoff about the new legislation’s price tag and its merit for state
transit safety groups that are already considered strong overseers.

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The Obama administration’s proposal
for a new federal role in transit safety oversight would eventually
apply to buses, although the first round of rules would be directed at
subways and light rail, according to the U.S. DOT.

The
new transit safety plan, including a request for Federal Transit
Administration (FTA) authority to regulate buses, will be sent to
Congress in the coming weeks for translation into legislative form. The
plan will also receive a House hearing on December 8.

"The
administration expects its early efforts, however, to be focused on
addressing rail transit safety," the DOT wrote in a statement on the
proposed legislation, tentatively titled the Public Transportation
Safety Program Act.

The DOT’s statement depicted the motivation for its move as broader than the fatal June collision
of two trains on Washington D.C.’s Metrorail network. A transit safety
task force headed by deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari also
reviewed the July crash on San Francisco’s Muni system, a crash on Boston’s light rail in May, and a 2006 derailment on a below-ground stretch of Chicago’s transit network.

"DOT
is also seeing some warning signs regarding increased collision rates,
derailment rates, and worker fatalities that give us cause for
concern," the agency stated.

Citing past criticism
of the federal approach to regulating inter-city passenger rail,
transit advocates have raised concerns that local transit authorities’
already tight budgets could be strained even further by the cost of complying with new FTA rules — prompting service cuts and fare increases.

One
detail that may answer some questions about the federal process:
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood plans to appoint an advisory
committee — with local transit agencies likely represented — to
counsel Washington on the ins and outs of crafting new transit safety
rules, according to the DOT.

Details of the Obama administration’s proposal to carve out a federal presence overseeing transit safety, first reported yesterday
by the Washington Post, have yet to cross the desks of some top
lawmakers and industry stakeholders. But reaction to the idea, both
positive and hesitant, is plentiful this morning.

In the wake of the 2007 collapse of Minnesota’s I-35 bridge, Washington policymakers vowed
a renewed focus on repairing the nation’s aging infrastructure. But
weeks after the fatal collapse, Congress approved a transportation
spending bill with 704 earmarked projects, at a total cost topping $570
million — and just 11 percent of those earmarks went towards bridge
repair, according to a new report released today.

Today’s
report, produced by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG),
contrasts the low amounts lawmakers set aside for bridge repair with
the flood of campaign contributions sent their way by highway,
development, automobile, and construction groups.

During
the election cycle that reached its peak in 2008, the year that bridge
repairs accounted for 74 of Congress’ 704 transportation earmarks, U.S.
PIRG found that road-building interests steered $80.3 million to
federal campaigns.

The same highway-centric groups also
lavished $53.5 million in campaign cash on state elections, in which
the costs of securing a victory are often much lower, according to the
report. Road-building interests split their federal donations more
evenly, steering 47 percent to Democrats and 53 percent to Republicans,
compared with a 61-39 split in favor of the GOP in state elections.

The report (available here)
separates donations from "transportation" versus "construction" groups
but does not name which lobbying entities U.S. PIRG singled out for
analysis, making it difficult to directly connect specific donations to
specific earmarks.

But the authors’ conclusion "that
elected officials often overlook preventative maintenance projects,
especially when new capacity projects are encouraged by campaign
contributions" was bolstered by an Associated Press investigation
one year after the Minnesota collapse. That AP probe found that just 12
percent of the deficient bridges getting the most state-level traffic
had received any attention other than regular maintenance.

"The
greatest need, for
almost every place, is investing in existing infrastructure," said Mark
Stout, who spent 25 years working on policy at the New Jersey DOT
before helping put together U.S. PIRG’s report.

"Each
earmark and each project has its own
story," he added, "but by and large, I think it’s safe to say that a
structurally deficient bridge is not going to rally around it a lot of
local elected officials and business interests that are
lobbying to make [repairs] happen. They sort of think that’s someone
else’s job or that
someone else is going to take care of it."

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If the equivalent of one jumbo jet full of Americans died every month, the resulting public outcry would be deafening. Or would it?

Anne Canby, the former Delaware transportation secretary who heads the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership (STPP), raised that question today as her organization helped unveil a new report on the nation's pedestrian safety outlook. In fact, Canby said, nearly 5,000 U.S. pedestrians die in traffic crashes every year -- but the resulting public health risk has yet to register as an urgent national issue.

The report released today, a joint effort by STPP and Transportation for America (T4A), ranks the nation's most dangerous cities for pedestrians and bicyclists according to a "danger index" that factors in the number of residents who walk to work.

The top 10 most dangerous areas (viewable above) were all located in the south. Florida has the dubious distinction of hosting the top four riskiest cities, though the study's authors noted that the state's large percentage of retirees were not disproportionally represented in fatality data.

The rankings are likely to be troubling for residents of the most dangerous cities, but the report's rundown of federal safety spending paints just as lackluster a picture.

Since the 2005 transportation bill took effect, according to the report, U.S. cities with populations greater than 1 million have spent an average of $1.39 per person in federal money on pedestrian and bicyclist safety. Under the 1998 transportation bill, the same U.S. cities spent just $0.82 per person in federal money -- a rise that today's report deems "a vast improvement" but Canby finds lacking.

"Safety for pedestrians has not really advanced a great deal over this period," Canby told reporters today, adding that walking and biking have yet to be "regarded as full forms of transportation."

Pedestrian and bicycle safety is often funded through Transportation Enhancements (TE), a program that sets aside 10 percent of each state's aid from Washington for green transport. But as Streetsblog Capitol Hill reported last month, TE took a disproportionate hit when congressional inaction forced the cancellation of $8.7 billion in state DOT contract authority.

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The Senate environment committee’s senior Republican, Jim Inhofe (OK), delivered
a stern warning today to any lawmakers who would force another
short-term extension of federal transportation programs, which are set to expire at midnight Saturday.

"We
have bridges in Oklahoma that are crumbling and falling down. People
could be hurt," Inhofe told a talk radio station in his home state, as reported
by the local Associated Press. "We have to do this. … Any government
that can spend $700 billion to bail out banks shouldn’t be having the
problems that we’re having."

Oklahoma is far from the only state that faces urgent problems
caused by decaying infrastructure. A commercially vital bridge over
Lake Champlain was shut down
last week when the New York state DOT found weaknesses in its supports,
cutting off a large Vermont dairy farm from its own milking cows.

But
Inhofe did not mention the leading source of the impasse over a
longer-term extension of the 2005 transportation bill: his own party.

The
Oklahoman told CQ earlier this week that "at least two Republicans
objected" to unanimously approving six months’ worth of funding, "and
that there is not enough floor time to finish a bill this week under
normal procedure."

A similar situation played out in the wee hours of last month, when Republican senators blocked a plan
to use unspent money from the $700 billion banking bailout — which
Inhofe voted against — to prevent the cancellation of more than $8
billion in transportation contracts.

As Streetsblog Capitol Hill reported yesterday,
barring a last-minute agreement to take up the six-month extension, the
federal transportation program is likely to be extended under a
"continuing resolution" that lasts until Dec. 18 or a three-month
extension, already approved in the House, that lasts until Dec. 31.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) today unveiled his plan to take an incentive-based approach to distracted driving as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testified on the Obama administration’s campaign to end the use of electronic devices behind the wheel.

Rockefeller’s
bill, co-sponsored by three Republicans as well as Sen. Charles Schumer
(D-NY) — who also backed a more punitive distracted driving bill
introduced in July
– would set up a grant program for states that pass laws barring
drivers from texting and requiring the use of a hands-free device for
cell phone users.

In order to qualify for grants, states would also have to ban
cell phone use entirely by drivers under age 18. In contrast to
Rockefeller’s approach, the July Senate bill would encourage states to
act or risk losing a share of their federal highway funds.

As Rockefeller pointed out at the start of today’s hearing, his legislation would not require any new spending:

The new grant program
and advertising campaign would be paid for by redirecting unused surpluses from
the current seat belt safety program.  So: no new costs. We should not have to
mourn the tragic loss of any more precious lives needlessly cut short. It is
time to bring a new sense of safety and shared responsibility to our roads.

You can check out a PDF summary of Rockefeller’s bill right here.

The transportation spending bill passed by the Senate this week includes $50 million in rail safety grants sought in June by environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) -- but the bill may not become law for months, and today Boxer told California's Metrolink commuter rail that interim safety protections would have to stay in place.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Metrolink crash that left 25 people dead and prompted a federal mandate to install the safety monitoring system known as "positive train control" on all commuter rail systems. The accident also helped advance the push for a national ban on on texting while driving, the activity that was found to contribute to the accident. 

A recent report in the Los Angeles Times found that while Metrolink was making progress on some of the changes its officials vowed to make in the wake of the crash, other promises remained unfulfilled. In a letter sent today to Metrolink chairman Keith Millhouse, Boxer said she "was pleased" when the rail network started adding a second crew member to train operating teams, adding: "As we work together to ensure that positive train control is implemented as quickly as possible, safety must not be compromised in the interim."

This week's transportation spending bill also includes $500,000 Boxer set aside for Metrolink to help pay for installation of "positive train control," a computer-based system that helps prevent crashes by automatically detecting when two trains travel too close to one another.

The senator's full letter to Millhouse follows after the jump. Read more...

The recent crash of two D.C. Metro trains has laid bare a glaring lack of authority at the obscure local committee that is supposed to ensure transit riders' safety, as the Washington Post reported today. But the problem is bigger than the nation's capital: The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has not issued broad safety rules for rail transit, leaving the issue in the hands of state oversight agencies.

The Obama administration plans to reform this federalist approach to transit safety, which has allowed the D.C. Metro to postpone installation of a backup train monitoring system suggested by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Aside from California's 12-person oversight panel, the average state safety agency has less than one full-time employee, FTA chief Peter Rogoff said last week.

Meanwhile, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) recently ruled that "positive train control" crash protection systems must be in use on commuter and inter-city passenger rail systems -- though it lacks the power to extend that mandate to rail transit.

"What's more important than whether the FTA [sets national safety standards] or whether the FRA does it is that someone does it who has the teeth and the authority and the funding and the personnel to really compel the attention of the transit agencies," Rogoff told the Senate Banking Committee.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced legislation two weeks ago that would authorize the U.S. DOT to begin setting national safety guidelines for rail transit. In her speech introducing the bill, Mikulski said she was responding to an NTSB briefing she received after the D.C. Metro crash on June 22.

This is when I learned the NTSB had recommended that the ... FTA establish federal standards for metro systems but the FTA had not taken action. Apparently, the FTA doesn't think it has this authority. Well, my bill fixes that.

But how does the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), which represents the nation's transit networks, view the prospect of federal oversight? APTA President William Millar told the Post he was wary of "throw[ing] the baby out with the bath water," given that transit remains far safer than car travel, but he refrained from weighing in on the Mikulski bill.

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