Streetsblog San Francisco

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) are no fans of dedicated
federal spending on cleaner transportation. From bike and pedestrian safety to local transit funds, the duo has made a habit of attacking non-road projects as wasteful "pork."

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (Composite Photo: City-Data.com)

And yesterday was no exception, as McCain and Coburn released a report [PDF]
criticizing 100 projects being funded by the Obama administration’s
stimulus law. On the senators’ hit list were three bicycle and
pedestrian infrastructure projects, in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and
South Dakota.

The report may have backfired on critics of
federal bike-ped investment by prompting a sharp rebuke from none other
than Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who wrote on his blog:

We’ve worked hard this year to get our Recovery Act dollars out to
the states quickly and effectively. Yes, some of those projects include
bike paths, a key ingredient in our livability initiative to allow
people to live, work, and get around without a car.

We don’t call that waste; we call it progress.

But the most surprising aspect of the report is how weakly the senators
argue against the bike-ped projects while strongly — and quite
inadvertently — making the case for progressive transportation reform.

For example, the McCain-Coburn report goes after Minnesota’s Cedar Lane trail expansion based on a single local article
that notes the project received high marks after in-depth vetting from
the local metropolitan planning organization (MPO). The story’s
strongest critic of the bike lane, meanwhile, is a local legislator
conservative enough to consider GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MN) "too green."

But
the senators also went after a Georgia DOT project that duplicated an
estimated $88,000 of work to repave a road that was already smoothed in
2007. The article they source for that criticism quotes a bike advocate who was "peeved
the money hadn’t been spent on bicycle lanes instead."

Read more…

As Streetsblog Capitol Hill reported yesterday,
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered amendments striking money for more than
20 transit projects from the bill that funds the U.S. DOT next year. 

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (Photo: Reuters via MediaBistro)

The
individual amendments have yet to come to a vote, but earlier today the
Senate defeated a McCain proposal to divert all earmark money from the
DOT spending bill to NextGen, the federal government’s long-delayed system for tracking airline delays.

McCain’s
NextGen amendment was brought down on a 26-68 vote. Three Democratic
earmark critics — Sens. Russ Feingold (WI), Claire McCaskill (MO), and
Evan Bayh (IN) — voted alongside the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee.

It’s
worth noting, however, that the transit projects McCain wants to strike
are unlike most other earmarks. The projects have already received
funding approval from the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) New Starts program, clearing the way for members of Congress to swoop in and direct transit money to their home states.

So
even if McCain had his way, the FTA still would be free to use its
annual budget on other transit projects — having altogether no effect
his stated goal of deficit reduction through a decrease in earmarking.

Meanwhile,
McCain is not the only senator taking aim at clean transportation
projects. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has offered seven amendments to the
DOT spending bill, two of which would block funding for bicycle and
pedestrian paths, as well as other programs that fall under the
umbrella of "transportation enhancements."

More details follow after the jump.

The
first of Coburn’s amendments would allow states to opt out of the
current mandate that 10 percent of federal transportation aid be spent
on "enhancements" such as bicycle and pedestrian paths, bike and
pedestrian safety education, or the conversion of abandoned rail tracks
to bike-ped paths. A report released by McCain and Coburn in July found
that states spent $3.7 billion on such enhancements between 2004 and
2008.

Coburn’s second clean transportation-related amendment
would block funding for bike and pedestrian paths and other
"enhancement" projects until the DOT certifies that the nation’s
highway trust fund is fiscally solvent — a prospect that is
exceedingly unlikely for the forseeable future.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a self-styled foe of what he labels
wasteful government spending, has launched a broadside against transit
projects in the U.S. DOT’s 2010 spending bill, which is slated for a
vote this week in the upper chamber of Congress.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (Photo: Scrape TV)

McCain
had proposed more than 20 amendments to the legislation as of Friday –
all but one of them to prohibit fellow lawmakers from earmarking
Federal Transit Administration aid for local transit systems.

The GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee frequently targets earmarks that span
a broad variety of issues, although his efforts rarely succeed in
peeling off more than a handful of Democrats. Still, his target list
for the 2010 spending bill that funds the DOT and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is notable for its focus on
stifling transit.

McCain included one federal highway project
on his hit list, one that appeared deliberately chosen from his home
state: a $4.25 million earmark for the Hoover Dam bypass bridge, requested by his fellow Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R).

Even
if McCain’s amendments fall short, as is likely, the U.S. DOT still
could be blocked from spending money on clean transportation. Sen. Tom
Coburn’s (R-OK) seven proposed amendment to the 2010 bill include one
that would "prohibit the use of funds for
roadkill reduction programs, transportation museums, scenic
beautification projects, or bike and pedestrian paths" until the nation’s highway trust fund is on a firmer financial footing, according to a report in Friday’s CQ.

After the jump, check out a full list of the transit projects that McCain aims to strike this week.

Read more…