Moving Beyond Highways

I would be remiss if I didn’t note the launch of a campaign for a new federal transportation policy. The news about the launch of the Transportation for America campaign was noted on StreetsBlog, Greater Greater Washington, and a number of other sites.

As I have written before, the federal law setting transportation policy will expire next year, and this group has been created to lobby Congress about the new policy.

First, some history. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was a bold law, which set the mold for America’s surface transportation policy up to today. The act established a federal gas tax which funded a highway trust fund. States could apply for funds to build highways, and in general the federal government would pay most of the cost (recently, roughly 80%) so long as it helped complete their planned national network. The idea was simple, and it worked at achieving the federal goal: encouraging states to plan and develop a national network of limited access freeways. That policy has remained largely unchanged to today, over 50 years later. However, in that time we’ve built the entire planned freeway network. Meanwhile, our public transit systems have languished. The 1991 transportation bill known as “ISTEA” was a significant shift from the old mold. It required metropolitan planning and gave significant funding for transit improvements. However, since then applications for transit funds have far outstripped the limited funds available. Even if applicants succeed in getting transit funds, the federal government only paid roughly half the cost — or less. Federal bureaucrats, especially under President George W. Bush, have created elaborate applications for the limited funds and pushed specific ideological perspectives. The highway bills have also become politicized, laced with Congressional earmarks including the famous Alaska “bridge to nowhere.”

The old model is obsolete for two major reasons:the gas tax, and our transportation needs. First, the federal per gallon gas tax hasn’t been changed in over a decade. Thanks to inflation, and more recently, declining gasoline use thanks to high prices, the amount of money coming in simply isn’t enough for all our transportation needs. Second, we don’t need to build a national highway network: we have one. More highways are not the answer to metropolitan congestion. We must shift gears profoundly, to focus on highway maintenance, urban mass transit, and overall sustainability in transportation. This leads us to what the new campaign is advocating. Their five-point platform is as follows:

1. Build passenger rail between and transit systems within cities
2. Invest in a green future including clean vehicles, new fuels, public transit, walking and biking
3. Restore our existing highways, bridges, and transit systems
4. Stop wasteful spending on projects with little economic return
5. Save Americans’ money by coordinating transportation and housing

I’ve focused on the bare bones of the platform, but the short policy statement released this week explains the other related issues: jobs, climate change, and oil dependence. Their materials say little so far about how these values relate to how federal policy should be organized. Earlier this summer I discussed some of the various competing proposals, including an infrastructure bank, capital budgeting project, or some version of what we have now. Its weaknesses aside, the report completed by a study commission set up by the last highway bill suggests how the existing federal programs and departments might be streamlined and reorganized.

The conventional wisdom surrounding the bill — echoed in the Roll Call story below — is that the “road lobby” that kept money flowing for roads over the past 50 years remains strong in Washington. Regardless of the political opponents, the Transportation for America advocates will have their work cut out for them trying to curb the congressional love of the earmark and corral diverse, locally-based activists and convince them to get involved in high-level policymaking.

> Transportation for America
> Roll Call: “T4 Lobby Maps Its Route”
> My Planetizen article: “Getting the Transportation Infrastructure We Need”
> Previous posts on the topic

Bank, Commission, Capital Budget, or Business as Usual?

My latest Planetizen post: Getting the Transportation Infrastructure We Need

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Public Transit

From a speech to the annual meeting of the American Public Transportation Association:

Last year, public transportation ridership reached its highest level in 50 years. While this upward trend is tremendously encouraging, it is overloading many of your systems, and making the need for infrastructure investment all the more pressing.

The question is not whether we must invest in our nation’s infrastructure, but rather, how do we pay for it? How do we proceed in a fiscally sound way?

One idea being considered is an infrastructure development bank to promote public and private investment in projects of regional and national significance, including public transportation projects. The bank would be an independent federal entity that would evaluate major infrastructure proposals and finance the best of them using a variety of financial tools. [...]

I know you have a keen interest in the reauthorization next year of the surface transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU. [...]

House Democrats are committed to robust public investment in public transportation. We are committed to advancing a bill that – at a minimum – honors the historic 80/20 funding split between highways and transit. The reduction of transit’s share below 20 percent that occurred in the 2005 reauthorization will not be repeated.

We are committed to reforming the New Starts process for funding rail transit projects. Many of you have worked long and hard to develop New Starts projects, only to have the Bush Administration move the goal posts, forcing you to comply with new criteria. This must stop.

It is essential that the environmental and economic development benefits of rail transit become fundamental criteria in the decision-making process for New Starts. We see with each new light rail system – whether the location is Dallas, Minneapolis, or Portland – a tremendous upsurge in transit-oriented development around rail lines and stations. Transit and the high-density development that accompanies it both have tremendous value in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and putting us on the path to a low-carbon economy.

Calling for a New Eisenhower

In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower championed a program to construct a nationwide network of highways to connect the nation. As a young soldier he had personally experienced the poor condition of American roads, and had seen first-hand on German autobahns how important a system of modern roads was for national defense purposes. The interstate highway system was born.

In 2008, we are in a similar position. European cities have some of the world’s best public transportation systems while Americans struggle with mediocre public transit and traffic congestion. Experts agree both our national security and solving global climate change depends on bold shifts away from oil consumption.

Will the next president step up to the challenge? That idea was suggested to me last night by David from Greater Greater Washington. Perhaps Barack Obama will cite personal experience riding Chicago’s struggling transit, or Hillary Clinton will describe New York City’s overcrowded subway, as they sign historic laws creating world-class transit systems in every American city. Perhaps John McCain, who voted against the last transportation bill because of its excessive earmarks, will sign a performance-based transportation bill to create energy-efficient transit systems nationwide for our national defense.

Does America need a new Eisenhower to champion world-class transit in every American city? After all, they’ve already started, even in McCain’s home state.

‘The genie is somewhat out of the bottle’

The “genie” a Bush appointee at the Department of Transportation is referring to is congestion pricing, or the practice of setting tolls high enough to keep traffic flowing. The quote closed a cover story in today’s Washington Post about both congestion pricing and privatization of the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Long discussed by economists as the preferred solution to highway congestion, the article describes how Bush appointees have provided funding to several congestion pricing pilot programs.

Setting aside the issue of privatization, congestion pricing may prove one of the most-discussed aspects of the debate surrounding Congresses’ next transportation bill. At the hearing where the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Committee unveiled their report the issue was the subject of one of the hearing’s more heated exchanges. The committee’s suggestions include new road capacity, allowing congestion pricing on the interstate system, as well as substantial new investment in mass transit.

U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) didn’t like what he heard. Roughly 1 hour 37 minutes into the hearing he interrupted the presenters to engage in a lengthy tirade about congestion pricing. “I’m particularly concerned about some of the arguments we’re receiving about congestion pricing, I think there are some very substantial equity issues.” He posed the example of a worker whose commute was impacted by congestion pricing. “What are the alternatives as a consumer if there isn’t a viable mass transit option?” he asked, “What’s your choice? Tell your boss you’re coming in two hours later? … Sell your house? Quit your job?” Representative DeFazio went on to argue he believes congestion pricing won’t reduce traffic, just cause traffic to overload local roads. “What we’re talking about is public infrastructure, a public good,” he said, exasperated, “I can’t see how this is some grand solution when people don’t have alternatives that are comparable.”

While Congressman DeFazio’s argument that congestion pricing was a form of rationing was quickly dispelled by a commission member, the other arguments he raised were not discussed will no doubt be heard many times again. I think he has several misunderstandings:

First, implementing congestion pricing does not necessarily mean tolling all lanes. In some cases existing high-occupancy lanes are converted to allow additional drivers for a congestion toll. Elsewhere, it may be possible to add tolled lanes to an existing highway. (Like this project along I-95 near Baltimore) These solutions wouldn’t impact Congressman DeFazio’s worker, only perhaps ease his commute by removing some private vehicles. It would also have the added benefit if creating new options for all drivers — a faster commute would be available when they were in a hurry.

Second, he doesn’t consider some of the issues I considered when examining the ethics of performance parking. One, we know the wealthy are more likely to own vehicles, more likely to own multiple vehicles per household, and also drive more miles per year. While I have not seen any studies on the matter, these facts suggest congestion tolls may in fact be progressive in the aggregate. Two, existing congestion his very high real costs to all drivers in the form of time, pollution, and fuel. With new congestion pricing, Congressman DeFazio’s hypothetical worker may have to pay more in tolls, but be able to clock more hours on the job or even find he can now commute farther to a higher-paying job. Three, new tolls may have additional unintended effects. Congressman DeFazio seems to consider traffic inelastic, meaning it won’t be impacted by tolls. However, according to the National Household Transportation Survey only 19% of travel is commuting to work, and 30% is for recreational and social purposes. It seems reasonable to expect some of the drivers will drive less in response to higher costs, or even use mass transit.

While Congressman DeFazio’s concern with equity is well meaning, we should consider the complex impacts of new tolls in a sophisticated way. While transportation is and should be considered a public good, as riders of public transportation know that good is often provided at a fee.

> W. Post: “Letting the Market Drive Transportation“

Fixing America’s Federal Transportation Policy

Over the past 50 years, the U.S. has been transformed thanks to massive investment in the interstate highway system. Funded in large part by the federal gas tax, the federal government has set policies and allocated funds to states to construct the national network under a series of bills starting with the 1956 National Interstate and Defense Highway Act. However, the country stands at a crossroads. Although the originally planned system is complete, congestion in our metropolitan areas have reached epidemic levels. Planners in many parts of the country have found that new roads don’t alleviate congestion but generate new traffic and urban sprawl, and for the first time cities are pouring billions into modern public transportation systems.

Every five years the U.S. Congress passes a bill defining the federal government’s transportation policy. The most recent bill, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (or SAFETEA-LU) will expire on September 30, 2009, so the next Congress will tackle the task of creating a new bill. Despite containing record amounts for mass transit projects and alternative transportation like biking, the $286.4 billion bill left many dissatisfied. A boom in mass transit projects has far outstripped the allocated funds, and the bill contained thousands of earmarks for specific projects that don’t necessarily alleviate congestion or contribute to an overall plan. The collapse of the I-35W interstate bridge last summer underscored the need to rethink federal transportation policy, to emphasize maintenance of the existing infrastructure and new approaches addressing congestion.

Due to the growing transportation problems and dissatisfaction with the existing programs, the SAFETEA-LU bill created a commission to study the issue and provide recommendations to Congress for the bill’s successor. I plan to follow the debate over the law to follow SAFETEA-LU closely over the next year, and I thought a good way to start would be to review the commission’s recommendations. In a remarkable report published in December, the commission suggested nothing less than a radical overhaul of virtually all of the federal government’s transportation programs. However, given the specter of global warming and the country’s dependence on oil, do they go far enough? Let’s take a look.

The commission made three major policy recommendations: accelerate the length of time it takes to complete transportation projects, re-organize all federal transportation programs into 10 topical programs, and create a new independent public commission to oversee a national transportation plan and make funding recommendations to Congress.

The report observes that it takes the average highway project 13 years to move from project initiation to completion (I’d guess it’s even longer for major transit projects) the committee offered suggestions to speed the process, mostly through modest reforms of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. They suggest Congress create a streamlined NEPA process for projects with “few significant impacts,” set time limits for review, narrow the definition of reasonable alternatives, among others. It’s not clear to me if these changes will be adequate or politically feasible, given the importance of the NEPA process to environmentalists to slow or stop damaging projects.

The second reform would reorganize over 100 federal transportation programs into just ten: infrastructure maintenance, freight, metropolitan congestion, transportation safety, rural transportation, intercity passenger rail, environmental programs, alternative fuels, federal lands access, and research and development. From the report:

My only quibble with the re-organization regards lumping all metropolitan issues together under the topic of “congestion relief.” Urban transportation policy isn’t just about addressing congestion but creating efficient, complex, multi-modal systems that drive urban economies. While it’s good to plan multi-modal systems, I’m also concerned lumping mass transit initiatives together with highways will de-emphasize their importance.

The last suggestion is the creation of a new, independent federal commission to oversee transportation planning at a federal level similar to the Postal Regulatory Commission or the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. This National Surface Transportation Commission (NASTRAC) would have ten presidentially-appointed members serving staggered six year terms. The commission would make revenue recommendations directly to congress, on which congress could exercise a 2/3 veto.

The programs generally fund projects at significantly higher levels than under existing programs, for example, metropolitan programs at 80%. To pay the tab the commission suggests raising the federal gas tax from $.59 to $1.03 per gallon. They suggest boosting it $.05-$.08 for five years, and then indexing the tax to inflation. While there is some discussion of the problem of alternative fuels cutting into this gas tax revenue, the report has few specific ideas for major new revenue sources. The current federal U.S. gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon, hasn’t changed since 1993, and the Washington Post characterized increasing it to be a political “improbability.”

Up next will be posts about the commission’s funding level proposals, a discussion of the equity of congestion taxes, the politics of transit funding, and any other topics I come across. Suggestions?