Streetsblog Los Angeles

Congressman John Mica and Senator Barbara Boxer at the February 2011 "local hearing" on the federal transportation bill held in Los Angeles. The two are surrounded by Congressional leaders and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Photo: Darrell Clarke

Amidst all of the negative news about the federal transportation bill recently agreed to by members of the House of Representatives and Senate agreed to, there is a silver lining.  The “America Fast Forward” provisions, a group of changes and funding increases that will help cities expand their rail transit systems, survived the conference committee.  Thus, instead of angry headlines such as those that have crowded the pages of Streetsblog Capitol Hill, the Los Angeles Times proclaims, “Congress Set to O.K. Bill That Would Help Fund L.A. Transit Projects.”

Antonio Villaraigosa, in his roles as Mayor of Los Angeles, Chair of the Conference of Mayors and Chair of the Metro Board of Directors, pushed and pushed for America Fast Forward, expending much of his political capitol but making a national name for himself as a leader on transportation.  The movement began as an effort to speed up local transit projects funded by the 2008 Measure R transit tax before Villaraigosa took it national.

Specifically, America Fast Forward would increase the amount of money in a federal loan program designed to help fund new transit projects that have a high amount of local funding, enable the USDOT to make loans to related projects at the same time, and authorize USDOT to make long-term funding commitments to help transit agencies make long-term plans that better reflect reality.

“With America Fast Forward in place, cities across America will be able to speed up the construction of locally funded road and rail projects and get our economy moving again,” explains Villaraigosa in a statement.  ”Here in Los Angeles, this agreement on the Surface Transportation reauthorization and America Fast Forward will mean more jobs for Angelenos and will make it possible for us to accelerate our vision of a 21st century transportation network.”

So here’s a simple question to Streetsblog readers: are the America Fast Forward gains enough for you to support the federal transportation bill?  As Los Angeles continues to build out its rail transit system, it can use all the help it can get.  Outside of the Bus Riders Union, it’s hard to find anyone opposed to America Fast Forward locally.  However, it’s easy to find people shocked by cuts to bicycle and pedestrian funding in the federal transportation bill. Read more…

Lahood speaks as Villaraigosa, Metro CEO Art Leahy and Metrolink CEO John Fenton look on, Photo: LA Streetsblog/Flickr

In recent weeks, two competing pieces of legislation are moving in Washington, D.C.  The first, is moving through the House of Representatives on a series of highly partisan votes and is reviled by advocates for transit, walking, bicycling and complete streets for it’s over-the-top support for highway construction.  The other is moving through the Senate with unanimous bi-partisan support and funds a more balanced vision for transportation funding.

But in yesterday’s “sunshine” press conference, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, decided to look on the positive.

“It’s time for them to pass the surface transportation bill.  it’s time for them to pass America Fast Forward,” Villaraigosa offered in a deflection of a question on Congressional investigation of how Los Angeles spent some of its federal stimulus funds.  Later, responding to a direct question from Streetsblog about the partisan bill moving in the House of Representatives, Villaraigosa focused on Congressman John Mica’s (R-FL) support for America Fast Forward.

America Fast Forward is the mayor’s proposal to change and reform federal law to encourage federal investment in projects supported by local dollars.  Under the proposal, Los Angeles Metro would likely be able to accelerate the construction of transit projects funded by a sales tax passed by voters in 2008.

“I am still positive about the portion of the bill that expands the current $128 million to a billion dollars for the TIFIA program which is one of the programs that L.A. needs to accelerate the 30 years of transportation funding into a shorter period of time, hopefully a ten year period,” Villaraigosa began.

“I’m also heartened that he did include three of the five reforms that we have said are necessary to accelerate that program.”

The Mayor did touch on the controversy surrounding the House Bill, but refused to weigh in.   “I know there is some dissidence between the Senate and the House version, and I don’t want to get in the middle of that right now so I’ll leave it with a positive comment, for now.” Read more…

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in Washington, D.C. today to support the dramatic increase in the TIFIA loan program to $1  billion that is proposed in both the House and Senate draft reauthorization bills and is the center plank of the America Fast Forward plan to accelerate transit construction.  By the time he flew out of town, he also through his hat in the ring to be the most popular man about town.  This is Villaraigosa’s 7th trip to the Capital to lobby for and promote portions of the America Fast Forward program.

The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program provides Federal credit assistance in the form of direct loans, loan guarantees, and standby lines of credit to finance surface transportation projects of national and regional significance.  Currently, the program stands at $110 million every year.  When transportation chairs Rep. John Mica (R-FL) and his Senate counterpart Barbara Boxer (D-CA) held field hearings on transportation, Villaraigosa reccomended tripling the program.  Both Mica and Boxer tripled Villaraigosa’s suggestion and are reccomending TIFIA be funded at $1 billion a year.

Researchers estimate that  increasing the TIFIA program to $1 billion will create 500,000 jobs over two years and 1.2 million jobs over six years

So, while Democrats piled on Mica, Villaraigosa joined the Congressman on a conference call earlier this month to defend the bill mainly because of the aforementioned increase in the TIFIA program.  While Senator Inhofe (R-OK) has been the poster-boy for bad environmental policy in part because of his denial of global warming, but earned praise from the Mayor for his leadership working with Boxer on a bi-partisan Senate Bill.  On a conference call with reporters, Villaraigosa congratulated Boxer and Inhofe for working together for “showing leadership to create consensus” around a Senate Bill.  Boxer referred to an earlier hearing, at which the Mayor testified in support of her bill, as a “bi-partisan breakthrough.”

But while he offered praise for Mica’s support for TIFIA, the Mayor is backing the proposal from Boxer, precisely because it maintains current funding levels instead of dropping them.  He told L.A. Streetsblog earlier this week that “we all would like to see a larger bill,” but faced with a choice between the status quo and a 30% cut, Villaraigosa backs the status quo.  He told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier this morning:

And on this point we cannot afford to mince words. I support the approach put forward by this Committee because it maintains current funding levels. Any reduction in funding to our nation’s transportation programs will deal a devastating blow to local projects, local jobs and the national recovery.

According to an analysis by the Federal Highway Administration, a 30% cut to transportation funding would result in a half-million Americans losing their jobs in 2012 in the highway program alone. An additional 130,000 would lose their jobs due to cuts in transit programs.

The Mayor’s full testimony to the Environment and Public Works Committee can be found after the jump.  We’ll have more coverage of today’s hearing from Capitol Hill Streetsblog later today. Read more…

At times in this whole reauthorization process, it’s been hard to see the way forward. House Republicans refuse to deficit-spend their way out of the funding conundrum, and Democrats haven’t gotten behind a coherent plan to come up with more revenues, though they’re still arguing for a bigger bill. Still, I’ve been reporting on the bill as if it’s bound to happen, one way or another. Secretary Ray LaHood has been unflinching in his optimism that a bill will pass this year. But the more I talk to experts, I realize: this thing probably isn’t going to happen.

Fantasies of a six-year bill seem likely to die at the feet of Senator Max Baucus.

I’m not going to quote any of them by name, because I don’t want to risk getting them in trouble with the Congressional leaders that are pushing for a six-year bill. But the half-dozen or so people I talked to for this story were unanimous in their skepticism that this year will see anything but another short-term extension, despite the fact that everyone agrees that’s the worst option.

One advocacy leader said he’s generally an optimist, and until a few months ago, he believed there was a 50-50 chance of getting a bill passed this year. (That’s right – even at his most optimistic, those were the best odds he could give it.) In the last month or so, he’s gotten far less cheery on the subject. The administration has refused to provide leadership on the issue, he said. Rahm Emanuel was a strong force pushing for reform within the White House and with him gone (pushing for reform now in Chicago, bless his heart), the fire seems to be gone as well. Besides, my source said, the White House is already in re-election mode.

Other advocates aren’t shy about putting the odds at zero. Many say they don’t see how a bill could pass this year, with deadlines getting pushed later and later into the summer. Some sources aren’t convinced the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee even has a bill written. Certainly the staff is working on one, but nobody’s seen it yet. Even some sources inside the administration are wondering what’s up. T&I leaders say they’re waiting to finish the FAA reauthorization before really getting started with the surface transportation bill, and that’s not for nothing – budget cuts in Congress have left the committee short-staffed and they simply don’t have the person-power to shepherd two major initiatives at the same time.

But the time crunch is far from the only problem. The small size of the bill the House is expected to pass could be the kiss of death. “The stakeholders that often drive the process are not going to be as enthusiastic about it if it’s a lower level,” said one expert. Besides, with a smaller bill (not to mention the program changes and consolidations being proposed), they’re going to need to change the funding formulas — a complex process that takes a long time.

The rift between the six-year bill camp and the two-year bill camp is about to get serious, some say. First of all, sixers have a way of changing their tune when it becomes clear they’d be locking in starvation funding levels for that long. And many people think Sen. Max Baucus wasn’t just talking off the cuff when he proposed a two-year alternative. If that’s his position, he has the power to enforce it, both as chair of the Finance Committee and chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee of EPW. House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica has made no secret of the fact that it’s six years or bust in his book. Some think Baucus will go along if Mica and Boxer insist on a six-year bill. But as one expert told me, “It’s rotten fruit – how much of it do you really want to take home?”

Read more…

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters today that the administration sent its draft bill to Capitol Hill two weeks ago. “It’s with the people that it needs to be with,” LaHood said, “the staff that’s working on a bill.”

Sec. Ray LaHood says everyone who needs the White House bill has it. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

So while we reporters have been busy poring over draft bills that, it later turns out, don’t accurately reflect the administration’s plans for the transportation reauthorization, the final bill has already been out there?

Not exactly. Committee staffers say they’ve received “technical assistance” from the White House but not a final bill. “Technical assistance” is Congressional jargon for getting a sneak peek at relevant sections of the president’s draft of the bill. But it looks like the White House is only releasing it like that – piece by piece, as needed, and only to Congressional staff.

Even that technical assistance was slow in coming, said one staffer. The leaked versions that were floating around probably helped convince the White House to be more forthcoming with their guidance, just so staffers could have an accurate idea of what the administration has in mind.

It’s unusual for Obama to publicly release his own draft of a piece of legislation – he generally leaves that to Congress. LaHood clearly seems to think that the people who need the bill have it, and I take that as a sign that we won’t be seeing any more from the White House.

Meanwhile, the action alerts we’ve seen today advocating for a big push for bike/ped funding shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign that the EPW Committee in the Senate is getting close to finalizing its language. According to inside sources, committee staff seems to be getting done with their draft, but that’s just at the staff level. Apparently that conversation has barely begun at the level of the senators themselves, and the staffers in their offices haven’t seen the committee draft yet. So it looks like there’s still a ways to go before we see a final bill.

Both the House and the Senate have recently stepped back from earlier talk of finalizing a bill by Memorial Day and are now shooting for “sometime in June.”

President Obama’s stimulus bill is one of a small handful of pieces of legislation that have come to define his presidency. Whether you think it was a smashing success or a dismal failure seems to depend on whether there’s an R or a D next to your name.

Was the $787 billion spending package was an effective economic stimulant? Was it well administered? These are politically charged questions. The House Transportation Committee met Wednesday for an oversight hearing on the $64 billion transportation portion of the legislation. Even before administration officials could issue their reports, however, congressional reps were trading jabs.

Just over two years ago, President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Today, more than 95 percent of that money is obligated. Photo: Tax & Business Law Blog

Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) said the bill “will go down in history as one of the government’s greatest failures.”

“I could not be more frustrated by the results that I see,” he said, citing still-high unemployment figures. “The total stimulus package was $787 billion. Still we have a stagnating economy.”

Rep. Nick Rahall, the committee’s ranking Democratic member, however, gave a more generous appraisal. “Do we have more work to do to reduce unemployment? Absolutely,” he said. “But would we be worse off today without the Recovery Act? Absolutely.”

Committee member Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) noted that the bill had created between 1.3 and 1.5 million jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“We all share your frustration that the stimulus package did not kill off the recession,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) in response to Mica. “I’m not sure many of us thought it would.”

Read more…

A draft of the president’s full transportation bill [PDF], obtained by the semi-underground Transportation Weekly, has started floating around Beltway policy circles. This draft is more informative than the partial bill that started making the rounds last week, but it’s still undated and it’s not necessarily the final proposal.

Downtown Denver's Cherry Creek Trail was funded with four different Transportation Enhancements grants. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

The draft bill closely follows the outline presented by the White House in February, apparently unaffected by the raging budget battles that have consumed Congress since then. Although high-speed rail was completely de-funded in the last budget battle, the president’s bill still provides $53 billion over six years to the program, with $37.6 billion of it for network development and the rest for system preservation and renewal. The proposal also sticks to the language of a “transportation trust fund” rather than a “highway trust fund.”

An accompanying section-by-section analysis [PDF] explains the new Livability Program (one of the five areas the entire transportation program would be folded into). It would consist of three program components, according to the analysis:

• The formula-based Livable Communities Program, which would absorb popular livability programs including Transportation Enhancements, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program, National Scenic Byways Program, Recreational Trails Program, Bicycle Transportation and Pedestrian Walkways, and Safe Routes to School. Some transit projects proven to improve air quality would be allowed. States would be required to use some of the money to employ a full-time Safe Routes to School coordinator and at least one bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. States would also be required to develop a livable communities strategy in support of national performance goals for livability, to be reported on annually. The budget allocates $23 billion over six years to this program.

Read more…

As we reported yesterday, the buzz around a two year transportation bill seems to be growing, and there are sound reasons to set our sights on a shorter-term bill, despite the obvious pitfalls.

RIDOT Director Michael Lewis. Photo courtesy of RIDOT

Pro:

• Preserve higher yearly funding levels
• Start fresh on a longer-term bill in 2013 under a new administration or Obama’s second term, either of which might be more open to talking about raising new revenue
• The economy will likely have further rebounded by 2013, making a gas tax hike less politically dangerous to support

Con:

• John Mica will beat the crap out of you
• Less ability to plan long-term
• Deficit-hawk Republicans unwilling to adequately invest in infrastructure may control both houses of Congress in 2013

I spoke this morning to Michael Lewis, the Director of the Rhode Island DOT. He said he sees both sides. He said obviously, a longer-term bill would be ideal, because it allows states to plan larger projects and manage their finances.

All states have been struggling in recent years because of this continuing resolution. We haven’t been able to plan longer, multi-year projects because we really don’t know how much money we’re getting. That being said, a longer-term bill with less money to the states is a real problem for the states. It’s a real problem for the country. Congress has a real dilemma. If they’re not going to increase the revenues into the Highway Trust Fund, maybe we’re better off at a shorter-term bill that has level funding as opposed to locking in a long-term bill with lower funding.

Brian Searles, secretary of the Vermont DOT, had a similar message. A six-year bill is far better, he told me, and he’s still hoping that President Obama’s vision for a robust investment package will set the tone for the conversation. But if that doesn’t happen? “Oh sure,” he said, “if it was a much smaller bill than what president Obama has talked about up to this point then clearly we’d want a bill that was shorter in duration.”

States have had a unified message to Congress: we want a long-term bill. And until now, that’s generally been understood to mean a six-year bill. AASHTO is on record as supporting a “multi-year” bill, but it won’t specify how many years is “multi.”

Read more…

Like everyone else, Safe Routes to School advocates are scaling back. Last year, a bill introduced in the Senate asked for $600 million to enhance pedestrian and bike safety near schools. “We were working in a pretty different environment,” said Margo Pedroso, deputy director of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. “Everybody was talking about a $500 billion transportation bill. So we figured, we don’t know what the full bill will be in the end, but let’s go for the funding we feel like we need.”

Kids biking to school in Illinois. Photo courtesy of Safe Routes to School National Partnership.

This week, 12 Democratic Senators introduced a bill to maintain current funding for Safe Routes to School at $183 million and keep it as a standalone program.

Those seem like reasonable goals, but even they will be a haul. The next reauthorization, as we’ve been amply warned, may be even smaller than the last one, given low revenues. And everyone from the administration on down is in favor of consolidating programs, meaning Safe Routes to School would be one piece of a much bigger pie called “Livability.”

It’s also telling that the Partnership couldn’t get a single Republican co-sponsor on the bill. Last time around, they had three. But this time, with everything getting cut, GOP lawmakers were reluctant to “play favorites” and recommend one program for sustained funding. And with the reauthorization process well underway, the Partnership didn’t want to wait any longer to try to attract GOP sponsors. They moved the bill forward with Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) taking the lead.

Safe Routes to School pulls communities together to identify trouble spots that prevent parents from feeling safe letting their kids walk or bike to school. Sometimes it means building or widening a sidewalk. Sometimes parents create “walking school buses,” where an adult accompanies a whole gaggle of kids on their walk. Sometimes it means raising crosswalks or calming traffic or installing flashing School Zone signs. In communities where crime or harassment is the biggest deterrent, SRTS works with police to address personal safety.

In some communities, Pedroso acknowledges, walking to school just isn’t an option. So the new bill allows for 10 percent of SRTS funds to be spent on safe routes to bus stops. “In really, really rural communities where kids live miles and miles from school, they’re not going to be able to walk or bike to school,” said Pedroso. “What they’re often struggling with is safety getting to the bus. And they may be walking on these county roads where there are no shoulders, no lighting, they’re right up against the tree line, and there’s really not a safe place for them.”

Read more…

An altered billboard from a 1983 promotional campaign in San Francisco. For the full story behind the billboard visit Found San Francisco

(Ryan Wiggins is Transportation for America’s an on the ground in Southern California.  Last week he presented a primer on transportation funding at “Expanding Our Public Transit Options: Resources to Keep LA Moving Forward?” a Salon put on by Breathe L.A.  He was nice enough to share his notes with us in a two-part series.  Today we’ll focus on the federal picture.  Tomorrow on the state one. – DN)

Before 1983 all funds dedicated to transit came from the federal general fund through appropriations.  In 1983 the Mass Transit Account created 1.0 cent gas tax which was raised in 1993 to 2.86  cents per gallon.  The federal gas tax has not been raised since.

Federal transit programs such as New Starts, which is responsible for many of the nation’s major transit projects, and the newer TIGER program come from the general fund, not the gas tax, and are subject to the annual DC budget battles

For the most part federal transportation funds only fund capital projects and not operations.  The major exception is for urbanized areas under 200,000 people where some capital funds can be flexed into operations.

Two bills were introduced last year to address the increasing operating deficits that transit agencies have been facing as a result of the economic downturn, more fuel efficient cars, and people in general driving less that have decreased state revenues to cover operating expenses forcing agencies to cut services in a time when demand for transit has increased.

The first is HR 2746, introduced by Russ Carnahan (D-Missouri), that would allow regions with populations over 200,000 to use a portion of their formula transit funds to cover operating expenses. This bill does not require additional federal revenues and received significant bipartisan support in the last Congress.  It is possible for inclusion in the reauthorization of the federal bill this year. Read more…