America's transportation and infrastructure policies affect literally everyone who moves from place to place in the country, but often they are under-discussed and over-simplified by the mainstream media. To help broaden the debate, Streetsblog Capitol Hill is kicking off a new Q&A series called "The Four Questions."

Robert Puentes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program (Photo: Brookings)

The goal is simple: Every week, a different person will weigh in on the same four queries about the future of the nation's built environment. The questions will remain the same, in order to provoke a thoughtful exchange of views on the biggest challenges facing transportation policymakers -- but the range of participants will be limitless.

Our guest for the inaugural Four Questions is Robert Puentes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program (MPP) and a prolific analyst of growth and development issues. (Check out more from the MPP at its blog, The Avenue.)

Any suggestions for future participants in The Four Questions? Let us know in the comments.

1. Transportation planning -- the evaluation and construction of transit, road, and bridge projects -- is often considered primarily a state and local issue. What specific type of role should the federal government should have in the mix?

We've actually proposed a three-pronged strategy for our national transportation program.

First, the federal government should lead in those areas where there are clear demands for national uniformity, or else to match the scale and geographic reach of certain problems. We must define, design, and embrace a new, unified vision for transportation policy. Its focus should be on infrastructure investments that support the competitiveness and environmental sustainability of the nation rather than on funding individual states or spending on singular needs.

The federal government should create a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) able to select and finance large, multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional infrastructure projects on a merit basis. The NIB would be the window through which states, groups of states, and metropolitan areas would request financing or grants for a range of infrastructure projects -- from road and rails to ports and pipes. The federal government would provide initial capital that NIB would use to issue bonds. The Treasury would pay the interest on the bonds and it would act as a lender of last resort for the principal of the NIB loans. The proceeds from the bonds would be used to finance major projects proposed by public entities (states, municipalities, agencies).

Yet while there are clearly areas of physical infrastructure development where the federal government needs to lead, Washington also needs to put itself squarely in the service of state, local, and business leaders whose knack for solving problems has always driven this country forward.

2. As the gas tax loses some of its value in an era of more fuel-efficient vehicles, should it be increased or abandoned in favor of a new system of transportation financing? Or should both options be in play?

Just as transportation is not an end in and of itself, neither is increasing funding the primary solution to the nation's transportation problems. However, because of the short term conundrum of the federal government obligating more federal money for transportation than it has to spend and the disdain for the annual rescissions, many are calling for the next Congress and the new President to increase the federal gas tax. This puts the cart before the horse.

Simply put: we should not continue to pour more money into a dysfunctional system before serious attempts at significant policy reform. In other words, the federal transportation program is not just broke; it is broken. The funding debate needs to shift from spending more and more taxpayer dollars on the same product to where, what, and how to spend that money better. So in addition to just focusing on increasing revenues for the existing program the nation deserves a real conversation about curbing the demand for transportation spending. It is impossible to start with a funding solution or what the optimal level of investment should be when there is no agreement about what the federal role should be, what problems we are trying to solve, or what questions we are trying to answer.

[Former deputy Transportation Secretary] Mort Downey has pointed out that no major federal transportation reform has ever occurred without a major increase in revenues. This should be another one of those times.

We need a clear articulation of the goals and objectives of the federal program, and the desired outcomes. The program should then be structured to get to those outcomes. At that time, all options toward reinvigorating transportation funding should be on the table to meet the transportation challenges of the future while also ensuring financial revenues will be available.

3. The lion's share of federal transportation funding is sent through state DOTs that then pass aid on to major cities. Do you think this approach allows urban, suburban, and rural needs to be fully met?

The intent established in the ISTEA legislation of 1991 to elevate the importance of metropolitan decision-making to better align with the geography of regional economies, commuting patterns, and social reality has largely been subverted. Federal transportation policy has only haltingly recognized metros' centrality to transportation outcomes, and continues to assign states the primary role in transportation planning and programming.

Left to their own devices, most states have not embraced the intent of federal law and have not devolved sufficient powers and responsibilities to their metropolitan areas. They remain the principal decision-makers on transportation projects, including those within metropolitan areas. Many state DOTs still wield considerable formal and informal power and retain authority over substantial state transportation funds.

One positive step to enhance metropolitan decision making was the sub-allocation of funds directly to the regional and local government structures initiated by ISTEA. This helped strengthen metropolitan areas by changing the decision-making body for a portion of the overall funding, giving local officials the ability to spend federal transportation funds based on the unique needs of their region. However, the reality is that these funds still make up only a very small share of the overall funding pie. Taken together, federal law only gives metropolitan areas direct control over a small share of road and bridge funding under SAFETEA-LU. This misalignment has led to a dramatic shift in the way funds are raised in major metropolitan areas as these places are increasingly turning to voter-approved “local option taxes” to pay for certain metropolitan-scale projects.

Funding analyses in several states show how these biases harm metropolitan areas. These areas contribute significantly more in tax receipts than they receive in allocations from their state’s highway fund or through direct local transfers. In other words, although the donor/donee debate is alive and well on the national level between states, that same rationale -- logical or otherwise -- does not appear to have had anywhere near the same impact on spatial funding allocation within states.

4. Transportation contributes 30 percent of America's total CO2 emissions. Do you think a national cap-and-trade system should proportionally address this problem? If not, how should it be addressed?

To improve the environment, several states as well as the federal government have already articulated a desire to reduce transportation-related mobile source emissions in order to confirm with the transportation provisions of the Clean Air Act. We should go further and in addition to a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions a reduced dependence on foreign oil is also critical (which is a clear benefit to the national economy). To that end, the federal program should support all three legs of the stool—vehicle efficiency, fuels standards and alternatives, as well as demand reduction strategies promoting efficient development patterns, telecommuting, and increasing travel options for people and goods. Related to the above question, a carbon tax is a good idea as an environmentally-motivated tax that could potentially generate revenues for a range of transportation choices such as transit.

Senate environment chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) (Photo: Politics Now)

In the letter, Sens. Jim Inhofe (OK), Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), and Richard Shelby (AL) ask both parties' leaders to overcome the objections of a "small number of senators" who prevented quick passage of a six-month extension in September -- citing their opposition to using unspent financial bailout money to keep transportation programs running.

The three Republicans were joined by their Democratic counterparts: Environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (CA), Commerce Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (WV), and Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (CT). Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus also signed the letter, but the Finance panel's chief Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley (IA), did not attach his name.

A call to Grassley's office about his stance on a six-month extension of current transportation law was not immediately returned.

The political climate surrounding infrastructure investment, roiled in recent days by Democrats' new determination to pass job-creation legislation before the end of the year, remains highly uncertain. But the senators' letter signals that any new transportation spending is likely to be distributed using the same funding framework used in the 2005 bill, rather than through any revamped policy that might put roads and transit projects on a more equal footing.

The reason, simply put: If a six-month extension wins approval before the current stopgap transportation measure expires on December 18, a 2010 jobs bill could well be on its way to the president's desk by the time any broad reforms would reach the top of the congressional agenda.

However, the fate of any extra infrastructure spending was not mentioned in the senators' letter, which emphasized the importance of providing a steady funding stream that would "give states the certainty they need to plan and contract for" road as well as transit and bike infrastructure projects. A cancellation of contract authority triggered by the congressional inaction forced cuts to clean transportation budgets in more than 45 states.

Check out a complete copy of today's letter after the jump.

Dear Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell:

One of the best ways to spur job creation and economic recovery is through infrastructure investment. That is why a longer term extension of the surface transportation program is so important to maintaining our nation's vital bridges, roads, public transportation and other related infrastructure, restoring our economy and creating good jobs for American workers.

In July, the Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs each reported an 18-month ex tension of the surface transportation program prior to the expiration of the 2005 surface transportation bill, the Safe Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), with bipartisan support.

We believe a multi-month extension of SAFETEA-LU is the best solution. It would give states the certainty they need to plan and contract for transportation infrastructure projects. The Department of Transportation estimates that every $1 billion spent on transportation and matched by the states supports approximately 35,000 jobs. It would also give the Department of Transportation's highway safety agencies the certainty they need to continue implementing safety-critical programs that keep motorists safe on our roads.

SAFETEA-LU expired at the end of September and, unfortunately, there was objection to floor consideration of the bipartisan legislation extending these important programs. This necessitated two short term extensions to the surface transportation program, attached to Continuing Resolutions. Short term extensions mean less money is available for states, and do not provide states the certainty they need to keep crucial transportation projects moving forward.

On a bipartisan basis, we have decided to move forward with a 6-month extension. Unfortunately, a small number of Senators continue to object and will not allow an extension to be considered by the Senate without a cloture vote.

We urge you to file cloture on the motion to proceed on the 6-month extension and dedicate the time necessary to complete this important legislation, so we can put Americans back to work and keep our economy moving.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) (Photo: Politics Daily)

Carper, speaking at a National Journal policy conference, said the prospects for short-term transport legislation still depend on finding a workable funding source. He mentioned an idea first floated last year by economist and Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson: increase the fuel tax by one penny every month.

Such a gradual increase, Samuelson wrote, would send a price signal in favor of fuel efficiency. Carper acknowledged that his colleagues didn't immediately warm to Samuelson's revenue-raising idea, but he also hinted that another economic stimulus measure paid for by deficit spending could be a non-starter in the Senate.

"Are we going to have another stimulus bill? I sure hope not, because it means we're in the tank again," Carper said, pointing to recent signs of an economic turnaround.

Carper, the lead sponsor of a proposal to give clean transportation 10 percent of money generated by a future climate change bill, also addressed rising pessimism about Congress' ability to pass carbon emissions limits before next year's midterm elections.

Passing a health care reform bill that's fully paid for, Carper said, would go a long way towards bolstering the prospects for climate legislation by demonstrating lawmakers' commitment to fiscal rectitude.

Carper's remarks were followed by a panel discussion that featured Polly Trottenberg, assistant U.S. transportation secretary for policy, and James Corless, director of Transportation for America.

Both Trottenberg and Corless emphasized the importance of messaging in encouraging public acceptance of infrastructure policy reforms. Asked about decreasing the nation's total vehicle miles traveled by telling Americans to "drive less," Corless re-framed the question as one of providing more transport options.

"If we want [to ask] people to drive less, that's not going to work ... [let's] provide people with more choice," he said.

Trottenberg sounded a similar note: "I don't like the question, 'how do we get people to drive less.' Before we impose anything on people that they don't like, let's meet the demand that's out there" for access to transit, biking, walking, and other cleaner forms of transport, she said.

A Muni LRV crash at West Portal station last July. Flickr photo: 2Girls1Queen

The proposal gives states the option of either keeping their existing transit safety oversight bodies, if they meet federally crafted standards, or turning over that authority directly to the Federal Transit Administration. In California, the California Public Utilities Commission is responsible for safety oversight of railroads and light rail agencies, including Muni, VTA, and BART locally. CPUC spokesperson Susan Carothers said the agency wouldn't have a comment until the full proposal is released.

"We'll look forward to reviewing the plan and working with our elected officials on it, and the [U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)]," said Judson True, a spokesperson for the MTA, which runs Muni. "We're going to be in close contact with our federal partners on these issues and we share their prioritization of safety. The most important thing we do is provide safe transportation."

Major light rail and subway crashes, including the Muni Metro collision at West Portal station last July, already tend to prompt investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). At present, however, the federal DOT cannot direct subway or light rail systems to adopt the NTSB's safety recommendations.

BART spokesperson Linton Johnson said the proposal might be an overreaction to several high profile incidents, when subway and light rail systems in fact have strong safety records. "If you look at the safety records of transit agencies and subways, they're pretty impeccable," said Johnson. "Obviously, one is too many. The number one priority of any agency I know of is safety."

BART, which hasn't had a passenger fatality as a result of a crash in its 37 years of operation, is technically a heavy rail system, not a subway or light rail. Still, it would likely be included in the new oversight proposal, which could eventually include buses as well.

Johnson also questioned a statement by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and a member of the House Transportation Committee, who said that budget pressure could lead transit agencies to cut their safety budgets.

"Even in the toughest of economic times, nobody cuts back on safety," said Johnson. "It's ludicrous."

If the FTA does take a greater role in oversight, said Johnson, it should focus on inspection, not on analyzing crashes after the fact. "Quite frankly, the real way to protect passengers is to do [safety] inspection," he said.

Johnson also warned that if the FTA takes a greater role in oversight, it would come with greater responsibility, and potentially with greater liability for the federal government. "It's a double-edged sword here," said Johnson. "Obviously, the federal government has the right to come in if they want to be the overseer of safety, but realize that if they put in some sort of legislation and it doesn't work and a passenger gets killed even though the transit agency followed it, then [the FTA] better be ready to answer for it."

The CPUC and other states' transit safety oversight agencies will likely come under close scrutiny under such a proposal, and could be required to increase their staff size and implement new rules.

Jennie Loft, a spokesperson for the VTA, said the CPUC does fairly extensive inspections already. "The CPUC does a good job of oversight of light rail - they perform audits, inspections, and approve plans," Loft wrote in an email. "We don't know the details of the federal proposal, so it is difficult to provide information about it. However, the CPUC does a good job and is a model for other states."

According to Loft, that includes frequent reviews of the VTA system: every week, two representatives from the CPUC are assigned specifically to VTA property. "These utilities engineers are here every week," said Loft. "They review anything related to rail safety as well as interview VTA staff. They also attend the Rail System Review Board, which reviews VTA rail safety."

CPUC engineers also conduct occasional track and system inspections and generate reports about their findings, said Loft. Every three years, a full CPUC team comes to VTA and reviews processes, generates reports, and makes recommendations.

Tom Radulovich, a BART director for San Francisco and Executive Director of Livable City, said he's not sure how CPUC's current oversight compares to what the FTA's proposal would require, but that federal regulation comes with benefits and drawbacks.

"One thing that federal regulation of metros and light rail might do is encourage standards to converge, which would promote greater interoperability, and create a more open market for light rail and metro infrastructure in the future," Radulovich said. Existing Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) commuter and freight rail regulation has done that, he added, "and the US and Canada have a mostly interoperable network of railways."

There are serious downsides to federal regulation as well, according to Radulovich. The main issue with FRA regulation is "crash-worthiness standards that require very heavy trains," he said, a requirement that could hamper the development of high-speed rail.

The D.C. Metro (Photo: WaPo)

"Safety is a top priority for the public transportation industry, and we look forward to reviewing the details of the Obama administration's proposal to make our rail transit systems even safer," Virginia Miller, spokeswoman for the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), told Streetsblog Capitol Hill in an emailed statement.

"APTA and its members are committed to work cooperatively with Congress and with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) as new rail transit safety programs and standards are developed."

The administration's plan, set for formal release in the coming weeks, would allow states that already have active transit safety oversight groups to preserve that structure -- as long as the state-level entities could prove they possess adequate authority, independence from the transit agencies they regulate, and numbers of trained staff.

The state transit safety groups that continue their current mode of operating would receive federal money to pay for salaries and training for inspectors and other employees. The state-level entities that could not show minimum compliance would have to cede safety responsibilities to the federal government.

Reaction from members of Congress ran the gamut this weekend. In New York, where the transit safety board has a stronger reputation than the Washington D.C. transit overseer that prompted the Obama administration's move, Sen. Charles Schumer (D) and Rep. Jerrod Nadler (D) both praised the federal safety proposal.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the local Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) reminded Bloomberg News that "strong and independent safety oversight [is] already in place in New York.” And pushback has begun against the notion that national transit safety rules are called for given a recent uptick in the injury rate for subway and light rail passengers -- from 0.483 injuries per 100 million miles, in 2003, to to 1.362 injuries per 100 million miles in 2008.

The fatality rate for automobiles, by contrast, stood at 1.27 per 100 million miles in 2008, down from 1.48 in 2003.

The office of House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) told the New York Times it would keep mum on the federal safety plan, which is slated for a hearing in his panel next month, while senior Republican John Mica (FL) was a bit more skeptical.

The one constituency that seemed fully behind the pitch for federal transit safety rules was veterans of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Jim Hall, who served as NTSB chairman of the during the Clinton administration, told Bloomberg that the plan could stand to go further and "appears to be half a step in the right direction."

But did the focus on electricity generation tackle the fastest-growing source of U.S. carbon emissions? A new report released today by Environment America has the answer: Barely.

The report tracks state-by-state progress in reducing carbon emissions. The chart shown below depicts the national totals for emissions by sector of the economy, with the fifth column from the left depicting the percentage change between 1990 and 2007 and the sixth column depicting the percentage change between 2004 and 2007.

(Chart: Environment America)

Electricity was indeed the fastest-growing producer of U.S. emissions during both time periods, rising by 32 percent in the 1990-2007 period and 3.4 percent during 2004-2007. But transportation emissions were a strong No. 2, rising by 27 percent from 1990 to 2007 and 3 percent during 2004-2007.

The two columns on the far left show that during the last four years, U.S. commercial, residential, and industrial emissions have decreased in real terms while electricity and transportation emissions are on the rise.

The report's authors acknowledge that the period they studied saw "very little" increase in vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, which are set to rise notably in the coming years. But considering that transportation emissions are rising at such a healthy clip, it's natural to ask whether the Senate climate bill should set aside more than 3 percent of its revenue for clean transport -- and why the House bill did so much worse, making its 1 percent allocation optional.

The I-35 bridge collapse, above, killed 13 drivers. (Photo: America 2050)

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."

In the U.S. PIRG report, several states stand out as facing a high number of aging bridges that got scant attention from members of Congress. Oklahoma lawmakers set aside just one earmark of $316,000 in 2008 for their state's 5,793 structurally deficient bridges, while Iowa lawmakers got three earmarks worth $1.8 million for their state's 5,153 deficient bridges.

Missouri, by contrast, was a relative success story, with lawmakers winning four earmarks worth $5.4 million for their state's 4,433 deficient bridges. California, where the closure of San Francisco's Bay Bridge has sparked a fresh debate over bridge safety, got six earmarks worth $3.5 million for its 3,140 structurally deficient spans.

Meanwhile, lawmakers from New York -- where a capitol rally for bridge safety was held this week after the sudden shutdown of a span over Lake Champlain -- did comparatively worse. The state had 2,128 structurally deficient bridges in 2008 but got just one earmark, worth $294,000, to address the problems.

This year's American Society of Civil Engineers infrastructure report card found that 26 percent of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient and projected a $6.5 billion annual shortfall between actual bridge repair spending and the amount needed to achieve significant safety improvements.

The U.S. PIRG report does not include the emergency aid that Congress rushed to appropriate for the Twin Cities' bridge disaster. But it's worth noting that Minnesota Rep. Jim Oberstar (D), chairman of the House transport committee, initially proposed to take a step further by raising the federal gas tax by five cents to shore up creaking bridges. His plan quickly died for lack of support.

U.S. DOT headquarters (Photo: Capitol Riverfront)

The Wall Street Journal has the details, as part of a larger report on the Obama administration's internal debate over whether to set aside unspent financial bailout money for deficit reduction:

The White House is in the early stages of considering what bigger moves it might make for next year's budget. The Office of Management and Budget has asked all cabinet agencies, except defense and veterans affairs, to prepare two budget proposals for fiscal 2011, which begins Oct 1, 2010. One would freeze spending at current levels. The other would cut spending by 5%.

OMB is also reviewing a host of tax changes. The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board will submit tax-policy options by Dec. 5, including simplifying the tax code and revamping the corporate tax code.

Matt Yglesias tackles the political motivations behind the administration's efforts to project fiscal hawkishness while weighing new initiatives to combat rising joblessness ("without increasing the deficit"). But the signals of coming budget austerity at non-military federal agencies is another huge story in itself, and one that's bound to have significant implications for transportation policy.

The U.S. DOT made a budget request of $73.2 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2010, which began in October, compared with $68.2 billion during the final year of the Bush administration (FY 2009) and $70.3 billion in FY 2008. According to that data, a 5 percent cut would leave the agency's request above its FY 2009 level.

Once budget requests are forwarded to Capitol Hill, lawmakers get the final word on setting agency spending levels. But the administration's move -- which comes as more states face budget crises and find themselves at risk of losing federal matching funds for transportation -- suggests that a spending freeze may indeed be the best case scenario.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (Photo: LV City Life)

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told The Hill that Reid (D-Nev.) made the announcement about a new jobs bill at the Senate Democrats’ weekly lunch.

Reid said he was looking at an initiative focused on job creation “and that our caucus will take it up,” Cardin said.

Reid didn’t specify what would be in the bill, but he said that it was going to be “one of the priorities” for the Senate, Cardin added.

The political urgency behind Democrats' job-creation push is obvious; the "generic ballot" question, a polling staple that measures support for congressional re-elections, shifted in favor of the GOP today for the first time in months. 

But what's less clear is how open senators are to the perspective of Reid's No. 2, Dick Durbin (D-IL), who has emphasized the importance of new transportation spending, and whether any new spending would be targeted to repair the nation's aging roads and bridges before building new capacity.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) found earlier this year [PDF] that crumbling, rickety roads cost the average American about $400 a year in repair and maintenance, with the average city dweller paying nearly double that amount. Still, a "fix-it-first" rule for transportation spending is in place in only some states, such as New Jersey and Maryland, and was shot down during this year's stimulus debate.

Will transportation reformers and environmental groups publicly press for a "fix-it-first" approach in the Democrats' jobs bill, once it materializes? That may be the million-dollar (or billion-dollar) question.

Alice Rivlin (Photo: Brookings)

So it's reasonable to ask how Rivlin would approach the federal government's transportation funding crisis. And she answered the question yesterday during a legal conference. The Bond Buyer, a trade newspaper, put her remarks near the end of a related story (emphasis mine):

[Rivlin] argued on an earlier panel that major metropolitan areas, rather than state or local governments, should play a key role in financing and executing major infrastructure projects.

Metro areas are the focal points of the nation’s economy, she said, pointing out that while the 100 largest metropolitan areas nationwide account for just 12% of the land nationwide, they contain 65% of the country’s population and produce more than 75% of its gross domestic product. ...

Furthermore, she said the nation needs to overhaul how it finances its infrastructure needs, calling the gas tax flawed and increasingly outdated as consumers turn more and more to fuel-efficient vehicles.

“We need a major shift in the financing methods for roads and transit to incent efficiency and send stronger price signals,” she said.

Instead, infrastructure needs should be funded by a vehicle miles-traveled tax in conjunction with fees imposed on drivers using congested roads during peak travel times, she said.

Photo: gwenturnerjuarez

Reforming the Transportation Bible

Another topic that has long been on CNU's radar for reform is AASHTO's "Green Book," the bible for traffic engineers. As we reported, CNU Chief John Norquist has been working with the Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE) to add urban street concerns to the comprehensive roadway guidelines. Rick Hall, of Hall Planning and Engineering, in a plenary session yesterday elaborated on changes that would benefit pedestrians.

"There's not a single mention of pedestrians in the entire first chapter of the AASHTO's green book," said Hall. "It's all about cars." He argued that AASHTO's street classifications (arterials, collectors, locals) do not account for walkability inputs that make urban streets comfortable and livable. 

In Hall's opinion, MPOs and traffic engineers should start by indentifying cities that work for pedestrians, then use computer modeling and simulations to simulate urban forms in those cities, not just the travel and movement of motor vehicles.  For Hall, the most important walkability design parameters are, in order of importance:

• Small block size
• Buildings fronting the street
• Mixed-land uses
• Lower traffic speeds
• On-street parking (pedestrian buffer)
• Interconnected streets
• Narrow streets
• Quality Sidewalks
• Lower traffic volumes
• Street Trees
  

Hall called for a change to AASHTO's guidelines, including the creation of a new classification he called "compact urban," where speed limits would be lower and a number of pedestrian factors would be considered in conjunction to road characteristics.  In compact urban areas, he said, road design should not allow for speeds greater than 25 mph, versus AASHTO's current urban low-speed of 45 mph. MPOs could determine that they want to alter development patterns to add compact urban areas to suburbs and re-design streets accordingly.

CNU President Norquist told the audience he anticipated positive additions to the Green Book by 2010.

Throughout the day Friday, CNU participants have broken out into working groups to discuss the various proposals put forth in the conference and bring them together into the working document, Sustainable Transportation Network Principles [PDF], which the organization will take to policy makers in Washington D.C.

House transportation chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: STLToday)

For weeks, we've heard senior Democrats and the transit industry make the case for more transportation spending as a potent job creator, but the lack of funding for a full six-year bill has kept the conversation stalled.

But two things have happened in the week since Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) floated the idea of a "front-loaded" infrastructure plan that would concentrate investment in the first two years:

• The defeat of two Democratic candidates in Tuesday's off-year elections reinforced that job creation and economic worries are the No. 1 concerns for voters.
• Gross domestic product may be rebounding, but unemployment decidedly is not.

This adds up to renewed interest in fast-tracking a new transportation bill, perhaps with a two-year window. As House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) told David Rogers of Politico, "The concrete is cracking."

But even if the White House is prepared to abandon its insistence on an 18-month extension of current law, how to pay for new transportation legislation remains a very open question. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), for his part, told Rogers that he likes the sound of Rep. Pete DeFazio's (D-OR) proposed tax on Wall Street oil speculators:

There are some painless ways to fund the highway bill. Transaction taxes, that’s a painless way ... Where are the shared contributions to all this? If you’re sitting there on Wall Street, if you’re Goldman Sachs, if you’re making all this money, if you got all this federal money [in a] bailout, and you are paying all these big bonuses to your folks, where is your contribution to this recovery? That’s why it’s painless.

Clyburn's reference to the "highway" bill brings up another lingering mystery about the type of transportation spending being envisioned by senior Democrats. If the White House does agree to support a new infrastructure bill after health care is finished, will it include policy changes or just new money?

Because, as Clyburn inadvertently acknowledges, simply adding more money to the framework of the 2005 infrastructure law would help highways but do little to move the nation towards a more rational mix of transit and roads. Oberstar's pending six-year bill, by contrast, would institute an array of reforms, cutting 75 funding categories from the current system and allowing more "flex-ing" of road money for use on transit.

If a front-loaded bill is passed with some of the policy changes offered by Oberstar, job creation and a more accountable national transportation system could start moving hand-in-hand. If a front-loaded bill is passed but scrubbed of any substantive reform, jobs may be created but voters will still be sitting in traffic.

The Congress for the New Urbanism's Project for Transportation Reform summit in Portland, Oregon, has brought together transportation engineers, city planners, and transportation reform advocates to share best practice policies for reforming transportation metrics, funding mechanisms, and regional practices that isolate transportation planning from land-use and growth targets.  The highlight of the first day of the program was Portland itself, as councilors from Portland Metro, one of the only elected municipal planning organizations (MPOs) in the country, elaborated on their multi-disciplinary mission, which seeks to limit development within an urban growth boundary and coordinate transportation, parks and recreation, and solid waste management to achieve a more sustainable city.

It's quite a mandate, one that Metro's own councilors and representatives reminded the audience was a work in progress. Despite Portland's reputation among new urbanists and livable cities advocates as a national leader in promoting pedestrian safety and multi-modal accessibility, the region's municipal stewards said they have a long way to go.  

Metro Councilor Robert Liberty said, "I know this is the image many of you have of our region," while displaying a slide of Dorothy and her cohorts skipping along the yellow-brick road to Oz (Portland's green bike lanes do beg at least a chromatic comparison to the Emerald City). In reality, said Liberty, moving onto a photo of one of Portland's many crisscrossing freeways, the city is still fighting off the influence of Robert Moses (who visited in the 1940s and convinced city leaders they should build bigger and faster roads). 

Since 1973, with the passage of Oregon's Senate Bill 100, which led to the original urban growth boundary around Portland, the region has incrementally chipped away at the Moses paradigm of freeway expansion, instead funding light rail, robust bus service, extensive neighborhood traffic calming, and ever more impressive bicycle infrastructure. So thoroughly have Portlanders embraced the bicycle, in fact, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church recently unveiled a new bicycle shrine in its efforts to reach out to cyclists.

An abandoned spur from the planned Mt. Hood Freeway, plans for which were scrapped after the freeway revolts of the 1960s and 70s. Photo: Matthew Roth

Despite this effort to moderate the expectations of conference attendees, it was clear twenty minutes into the first presentation that Metro has so thoroughly incorporated new urbanist principles into their lexicon that they are essentially speaking a different language than any other MPO in the country. What's more, they are not merely drafting good plans that collect dust on a shelf, but funding the innovative policies and setting performance targets so the public, which has a remarkable opportunity to give direct feedback via the ballot box, can gauge their successes and failure.

When I asked the city engineer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, how receptive his peers, their MPO and the state DOT were to principles of network connectivity and human-scale transportation objectives, he gave me a bemused smirk. He explained that his city was moving closer to installing a 2-mile streetcar route, but that most efforts to convince Wisconsin DOT that it should consider transit projects are met with responses like, "we're in the highway business."

Two other conference presentations from the day were particularly interesting, the first from CNU President John Norquist, who explained the efforts his organization has been involved in to build support among fire and emergency service personnel for human-scale streets, traffic calming, and dense development. Norquist said the process has been slow but positive: they are hoping more states will adopt policies similar to Oregon's, where final authorization of traffic calming depends on traffic engineers, not the fire marshal.  

The other presentation, by University of Connecticut Engineering Professor Norman Garrick, bolstered Norquist's assertion that dense cities are safer cities, per capita. Garrick presented data from a yet-to-be-released study of cities all over California that measured the impact of street design on a range of safety factors, from emergency response times to bicycle injury collisions and pedestrian fatalities.

Garrick found that cities built on a grid network and cities built before 1950, which tended to have smaller streets not designed primarily for automobility, realized significantly better safety indicators. In grid cities, according to Garrick, one's chance of dying in a car was 50 percent lower than in suburban-style cities (branch street networks) and injury collisions were 30 percent lower in grid cities.  People living in grid cities were four times more likely than their suburban counterparts to walk and bike and two-to-three times more likely to take transit.

During the afternoon, attendees broke out into groups to take tours of Portland's various networks, from streetcars, to bicycles, to green streets (my post on the green streets tour will be forthcoming). Today's highlights will be  panels on MPO reform and analysis of the VMT reduction benefits of dense development along transit corridors. Tomorrow, attendees will hear from Representative Earl Blumenauer on his national transportation agenda.

You can get updates from the conference on Twitter by searching for #CNUtrans and be sure to check the CNU website for presentations and video. 

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) (Photo: AP)

The environment panel's chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had offered Republicans several days to abandon their walkout, promising time to consider GOP amendments and a complete Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) modeling of the bill before it comes to the Senate floor.

But environment committee Republicans were unmoved, insisting on an immediate five-week delay for EPA analysis despite testimony from the EPA that such work would produce little new information. Boxer's GOP counterpart on the panel, Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK), seemed to delight in forcing the chairman's hand as he labeled the no-amendments move the "nuclear option."

The question now becomes whether the specific proposals added by Boxer's panel -- including grant programs for transit and clean transportation that nearly triple the funding approved by the House -- can survive a long slog through as many as five other committees.

Boxer insisted this morning that "many things in this bill ... are going to be part of that comprehensive bill" that ultimately reaches a full Senate vote. But others on the committee acknowledged that the bill's one-party approval would not bode well for its political prospects.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), the chief sponsor of efforts to boost the climate bill's clean transportation provisions, described himself as "very, very, very disappointed," particularly given the loss of a chance to amend the legislation.

Carper submitted an amendment that would have added more than $400 million to the bill's annual set-aside of climate money for transit, inter-city rail, local land use planning and other projects.  "I don't like this process," Carper said this morning. "I don't think any of us do."

The question now becomes whether Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC), the lone Republican who has shown willingness to work with Democrats on the climate bill, can provide the momentum needed to overcome the Senate's molasses-slow pace.

Even if Graham's work produces an end result that can win over liberals and centrists, the billions of dollars that the environment committee devotes to transportation is not guaranteed to survive that process.

The lone vote against the environment committee's climate bill came from Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Finance Committee -- which has asserted jurisdiction over the apportionment of valuable climate "allowances" to various sectors of the economy, including transportation.

Late Update: While the environment panel was finishing up its work on the bill, Inhofe was giving an interview to Fox News (which mistakenly labeled it the "energy committee"). Inhofe called Baucus' no vote a sign that the bill is "dead" and claimed that this summer's conservative protests at town-hall meetings were driven as much by concern over the climate bill as over the health care bill. Check out the video below:

Chicago's earliest rail transit line, pictured here, was run by a private company. (Photo: Franzosenbusch Project)

Although Amtrak based its challenge on Keolis' inexperience operating American rail lines, the latter company maintains a sizable transit presence as a subsidiary of SNCF, the French national high-speed railway.

Moreover, Keolis submitted a markedly lower bid to take over VRE operations, undercutting Amtrak by $500,000 on first-year transition costs and $300,000 in annual operating costs. The French-owned company's winning bid totaled $85 million for five years, offering VRE workers the option of shifting to another Amtrak line or staying on under the new management.

Looking beyond the local implications of VRE's switch to Keolis, the new contract is part of a larger trend toward transit privatization that has seen recent deals struck in New Orleans, Savannah, and Phoenix. The Obama administration is encouraging greater use of public-private partnerships to help fund and operate transport networks, making these agreements something of a portent.

But substantial hurdles remain to the effective participation of private companies in the business of transit. Independent auditors at the Government Accountability Office submitted a report [PDF] to Congress last week after taking a yearlong look at how the federal transit funding process affects the ability of local officials to join forces with the private sector.

And what the GAO found was a whole lot of hurdles, many of them unique to the cumbersome rules of Washington's New Starts transit program. From the report (emphasis mine):

Consultants to the Dulles Silver Line project sponsor told us that through the New Starts process, [the Federal Transit Administration] has complete control over a project’s schedule, and project sponsors have to put project work on hold while waiting for FTA’s approval to advance into the next project phase. They also told us that construction activities on the Dulles Silver Line could not begin until the approval of a full funding grant agreement — as design and construction activities cannot be completed at the same time — and so some of the time-saving benefits of the design-build approach were lost.

Dulles Silver Line sponsors also nearly lost the tax-increment financing that was intended to fund the project, according to the GAO, when a full funding agreement under New Starts took five years instead of the estimated two or three. A similar situation arose in Houston, where a public-private partnership on a local light rail network told auditors "that FTA required them to submit and resubmit entire project documents to FTA multiple times, which led to delays."

By contrast, private participation in new transit projects on the international level has included equity financing in addition to operations and maintenance of the new lines. Citing World Bank data, the GAO found international public-private transit projects in the United Kingdom, Thailand, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, France, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Africa.

Given the already considerable obstacles to successful public-private partnerships in U.S. transit -- the need for private companies to cede the right to hike fares, for one -- it would seem grievously counter-productive to keep a system in place that impedes the use of the same "creative" financing methods being urged by President Obama.

The chief sponsor of the Senate climate change bill acknowledged today that there is a narrow window for Republican cooperation on the legislation, thanks to GOP resistance to its central goal -- putting a price on CO2 emissions.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), at right, with climate bill co-author Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) (Photo: NWF via Flickr)

"If there's a pricing of carbon ... there are some people that just aren't going to come along," Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) told attendees at a National Journal energy policy event. "I don't think there's an enormous universe [of Republicans open to the bill], but it's enough to get us over the top."

Kerry's remarks came as his co-author on the climate bill, Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), continues to contend with a GOP walkout of her panel's first meeting on the measure.

Kerry and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are slated to meet with senior Obama administration advisers today to discuss the framework for a bipartisan climate deal that the duo first unveiled in a New York Times op-ed last month. Kerry, Graham, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) also plan to tout the potential for a pro-business climate deal at a press conference this afternoon.

Kerry said today that the White House is "very much" open to the general principles of that op-ed, which include a strengthening of the climate bill's investment in nuclear power and expanded offshore drilling for oil and gas. "Nuclear is part of the solution," he added.

But even as Kerry and Boxer seek to make peace with resistant Senate Republicans, touting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's announcement yesterday of its (cautious) support for the Kerry-Graham framework, the prospects for political movement from the minority remain unclear.

Speaking to the Capitol newspaper Roll Call, Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK), the environment panel's senior Republican, charged Boxer with "destroying the integrity of the committee system" and suggested that his members had little will to show up for today's second day of climate meetings.

The Senate climate bill contains significant investments in clean transportation, including billions in annual transit and sustainable development grants. Inhofe was careful to distinguish his clash with Boxer on climate from his close ties with her on infrastructure:

When asked if the spat would hurt their efforts to pass a new transportation bill, Inhofe said “no.” “I don’t think so. We’re on the same side on that. ... You guys [in the press] don’t believe it, but we have a good relationship.”

GOP senators considered less conservative than Inhofe have been equally uncertain about the prospects for a climate compromise. Lisa Murkowski (AK), the energy committee's senior Republican, told National Journal attendees that "the closer to the election you get, the more political this issue will be," but she added that passage of a climate bill would be necessary before Election Day 2010 only "if it's [a] good [bill]."

Adding more subsidies for nuclear development is a high priority, Murkowski said, as is re-opening the incendiary debate over drilling in her state's Arctic National Wildlfe Refuge. "It's time to be talking about what we have up north," she stated.

Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer is one of Capitol Hill's strongest voices for walking, biking and transit. Soon after arriving in Congress in 1996, he started the Congressional Bike Caucus, now more than 160 members strong, and he's the founding chairman of the House's new "Livable Communities Task Force," which he announced two weeks ago here on Streetsblog.

Blumenauer's bike commute to the Capitol has become as much a personal hallmark as his predilection for bowties. So when he went to New York City over the weekend to stump for a progressive federal transportation bill, the congressman didn't pass up the chance to tour the city's evolving bike infrastructure with bicycle and pedestrian advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. Clarence Eckerson and his camera were there too, of course.

Watch this Streetfilm to hear Blumenauer's thoughts on the big federal transportation bill, the emergence of a national movement for safe biking and walking, and the difference between protected bike lanes and regular old Class 2 facilities. Then ask yourself: When will we get to see a congressperson or senator from California walk, bike, or ride the bus with Clarence?

Also, a reminder that Streetsblog San Francisco Editor Bryan Goebel and Reporter Matthew Roth will be in Portland, Oregon, this week, reporting on Congress for the New Urbanism's Project on Transportation Reform. Catch them on our Twitter feed and look for posts starting tomorrow.

Former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) (Photo: Wikipedia)

Boehlert is returning to the Hill today, three years after his retirement from politics, to testify on climate legislation in his capacity as co-chairman of the Bipartisan Policy Center's transportation project.

He has yet to begin speaking to the Senate environment committee, but it's worth taking an early look at Boehlert's remarks -- which lay out a path to bipartisan transportation reform that's both conservative and conservationist.

Boehlert's testimony begins with a fact that few of Congress' current Republican members acknowledge: if legislators cannot agree on a system for cutting emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will step in under Supreme Court mandate.

"Realistically, that is the alternative: Congress or EPA taking the lead role," Boehlert's remarks state. "Inaction by both would be unacceptable."

Boehlert then cites a few compelling statistics about transportation's role in the climate problem, noting that the sector swallows close to 70 percent of U.S. oil consumption and that 30 percent of the nation's carbon emissions come from shuttling its people and goods.

His next recommendation may well sound counter-intuitive to state DOT officials and community advocates alike -- America needs to think bigger than its traditional, locally-driven approach to transport:

We usually think about new investments as specific “projects” such as a new transit line. But to actually achieve emissions reductions and other national goals such as economic growth and safety, we need to shift from a project orientation to a programmatic one. This means thinking about how that new transit line can be integrated into an overarching program or plan that considers land use decisions, pricing options, access to the transit line, and any other policy that can improve performance.

Changing the culture of infrastructure, Boehlert adds, requires selecting projects based on "a suite of overarching national goals" that goes beyond the environment to include economic growth and safety.

He also makes the case for entirely "mode-neutral" transportation spending, which would take a free-market approach to project selection by setting rail, roads, transit, and freight on an equal footing and choosing the mode that best meets those "overarching national goals."

Boehlert's remarks praise the Senate climate bill's sponsors, environment panel chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA), for devoting nearly 3 percent of their plan's valuable "emissions allowances" to clean transport. Still, he makes clear that the 3-percent share should grow as the process goes on -- a banner that Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) is poised to carry when the first votes on the legislation occur (expected next month).

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) (Photo: Wired)

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.

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Capitol Chatter)

As the subscription-only CQ reported today:

Efforts in the Senate to take up a six-month extension of surface transportation law this week appear dead, over objections by a few Republicans to passing it without a full debate, said James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

... Inhofe said Tuesday that at least two Republicans objected and that there is not enough floor time to finish a bill this week under normal procedure. 

The Senate's lack of progress means that officials working on the nation's transit, roads, bridges, and bike paths will likely have to continue operating under a second short-term extension of the 2005 transportation law, this time lasting until December 18.

Despite the prospects of continuing uncertainty on the local level, House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) remained upbeat and focused on a singular goal: getting his colleagues to elevate infrastructure to the top-of-mind status currently occupied by health care (followed by financial regulation and climate change).

"Encircle the White House," Oberstar advised the organizers of today's rally, who parked heavy-duty construction equipment along the sidewalk to symbolize their plea for more transportation spending. "Encircle the Senate!"

The economic stimulus law's $48 billion in transport aid, $8.4 billion of which went to transit, "will dry up" by spring of next year, Oberstar added. He threw in a jab at Obama administration officials who insisted on cutting stimulus transit spending to pay for tax cuts: "I don't know of anybody who's thanked me for their $250 tax credit ... God only knows what's happened to it."

Speaking to reporters after the rally, Oberstar said that extending the 2005 transportation law until the holidays "will give us time between now and Christmas to agree on a six-year bill."

But the Minnesotan's push for taking up his $450 billion proposal by year's end has yet to be met with any enthusiasm from the White House and senior Senate Democrats, who until recently had aligned with Obama aides in favor of an 18-month delay.

And even if the Senate had won passage of its six-month extension, Oberstar said he would have raised concerns about the measure in the House, citing several "serious problems." One example, according to Oberstar: the Senate's plan would have shifted the current grant program for significant projects -- which helps fund some transit work -- back to the states, potentially jeopardizing the money.

For the moment, long-term transportation policy appears to have become the proverbial tree falling in the forest, with few in the capital taking note as the federal bill languishes and climate legislation climbs higher on the agenda.