TransForm

When USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood last month suggested that the country should consider replacing the gas tax with a tax on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to compensate for the dwindling Highway Trust Fund, which is primarily supported from gas taxes, the White House immediately rebuffed him, assuring the public and angry editorial boards that Obama had no such priority.  With a sluggish economy and greater fuel efficiency in new vehicles, a VMT tax would replenish the Highway Trust, though it would also allow planners and policy makers to develop solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through better land use policies.

In a sobering revision of the 25-year Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) at yesterday's Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) meeting, MTC staff explained that the elimination of the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund and much lower than expected sales-tax revenues forced the planning body to significantly revise down its projections for operational spending and expansion projects (PDF). The MTC revised down expected revenues by $8 billion (even despite over $3 billion in expected stimulus funds) and announced that BART's extension to San Jose is running a cool $1.5 billion over budget.

TransForm tells Streetsblog San Francisco that legislators in Sacramento have prepared draft legislation for how the state should spend federal stimulus money on transportation projects and that there is important advocacy that needs to be done to improve it.  AB X3 20 will be introduced imminently and debated this week. 

Transportation and social justice advocates packed the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) board meeting today to demand that the agency not spend a proposed $70 million of federal stimulus money on the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) project.  MTC commissioners heard testimony for over two hours from some of the more than one hundred members of the public who were mostly opposed to the OAC, claiming it would take money from the operations of AC Transit and other transit operators. 

The debate over how to spend the federal transportation stimulus money at the regional level is heating up and may boil over tomorrow morning at the next Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) meeting. 

California transit advocates have begun organizing a strategy to move legislation through Sacramento that would dedicate a steady, long-term state revenue source for public transit and prevent future budget writers from raiding it.