(editor's note: The section with area specific data for Southern California isn't done yet.  When it is, we'll have a post specific to our region.  In the meantime, this statewide article prepared by Matthew Roth in San Francisco is a great read.)

California residents living in sprawling suburban developments could save billions of dollars every year if they lived in denser, urban zones and along transit corridors, according to a study released today by smart growth and transit advocates TransForm. Analyzing four metropolitan areas--Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento--Windfall for All found that shifting populations in those regions to denser development along transit corridors would save save $31 billion per year, or $3,850 on average per household [Report Summary PDF].

In the Bay Area, where annual car ownership costs on average over $8,000 per person, individuals spend roughly $34 billion every year on personal transportation costs, compared to only $4.6 billion spent by public agencies on transit and roads combined. Households with poor access to public transit not only spend double the amount per year on transportation when compared to those with good access to transit, they produce more than double the amount of CO2, a greenhouse gas.

"The most astounding thing is that agencies pinch their pennies on transit and cut back and we feel like we can't afford not to save that service," said Stuart Cohen, Executive Director of TransForm. "We're already spending more than seven times as much as our agencies spend on public transit and roads just on buying and operating our vehicles."

What's more, the report points out that fuel costs represent a small minority of the cost of owning a car, so the craze for electric and other low-emission vehicles will not dramatically reduce the transportation costs for those living far from their jobs and far from transit. The best solution to combating climate change, the report notes, is to build walkable, vibrant communities where residences are situated close to job centers. 

Click to enlarge: household CO2 from transportation in the Bay Area.

"By reducing public and private transportation costs and increasing revenues to local governments, SB 375 can help put dollars back in the pockets of consumers and local governments," said Cohen.

Windfall for All counters the claim that SB 375 will be too costly to implement during the current economic crisis with several examples of how planning denser cities and offering alternatives to private car travel can save money.

First, in Sacramento, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) created a 2050 development blueprint that forecasts current development patterns and compared them to smart growth patterns. SACOG found that Sacramento would save $9.4 billion in public infrastructure costs (transportation, utilities, water, etc), $655 million in annual residents' fuel costs and $8.4 billion less for land purchases to offset environmental degradation from sprawl. The city would also see a 300 percent increase in public transit use if the city clustered development around transit within an urban growth boundary.

Benefits of public transportation for household costs and pollution. Image: TransForm.

In the Bay Area, parking regulations are a significant impediment to dense development. In San Leandro, parking minimums of more than two parking spaces for each new home made dense development a planning impossibility. When San Leandro re-wrote its downtown plan, it rezoned to allow 3,400 new homes, more than seven times the limit under the old zoning laws. The first development in the new Downtown Transit-Oriented Development Strategy, The Alameda, designed by San Francisco Architect David Baker, saves $3.9 million by eliminating a level of parking and produces 30 more affordable units, according to the report.

Based on these and other case studies, Cohen suggested California should consider levying a climate impact fee on gasoline to generate enough money to expand public transit options and expand walkable communities while improving the economy and meeting ambitious greenhouse gas targets.

"Building our communities with the expectation that every driver in a family is going to have to own their own car is part of what is part of what is bankrupting families," said Cohen. "The infrastructure for the... roads and those patterns of growth is part of what is bankrupting our public agencies."

Windfall for All Critical Recommendations

• Integrate full economic analysis into planning. The huge dividends from efficient land use become evident once personal costs, not just public budgets, are considered. Without such analysis, we will continue to promote plans and policies that cost too much for families, businesses, and local governments.
• Provide cities and counties with an infusion of funds to engage the community in planning. The state should make funds available for updating zoning codes and parking policies to make more efficient use of land and resources. Identifying strategies to maintain and expand the number of affordable homes is also critical.
• Fund cost-effective public transportation. The state needs to provide leadership and restore funds for public transit, as well as make it easier for regions to raise new revenues with climate-impact fees. Economic analysis could determine whether such fees, if spent in ways that promote more efficient communities, can reduce our overall costs.
• Innovate, evaluate and replicate. There are dozens of innovative strategies – whether an individual program such as car-sharing, or a comprehensive rewards approach such as UC San Diego’s. MTC, the Bay Area’s transportation agency, will soon launch the first “Transportation Climate Action Program.” This program will seed, evaluate and replicate innovative programs. Other regions should follow suit.
• New development should minimize pollution from new residents – or pay to mitigate it. The San Joaquin Valley is encouraging efficient development from the start. New developments that don’t provide walkable communities with convenient transportation choices must mitigate the costs of the air pollution that will be generated by future residents. The state and regional air districts should encourage this same system for mitigating the costs of greenhouse gases.

President Obama may be optimistic about continued U.S. economic growth as 2009 ends, but the reality on the ground in urban America -- which an estimated two-thirds of the population calls home -- is undeniably, disturbingly bleak.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (Photo: PennLive)

That was the message delivered today by two economists and a bipartisan quartet of U.S. mayors at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Michael Nutter, Philadelphia's Democratic mayor, seemed to sum up the mood as he mused aloud that the federal government had seen fit to deliver no-strings-attached cash to financial and auto companies deemed "too big to fail."

"Cities and metro areas are too important to fail," Nutter said, adding that successful urban government is "equally or, I'd suggest, more important than anything that's going on in industries."

Unfortunately, economic data suggests that cities are only just beginning to bear the brunt of what some have christened "The Great Recession." Steve Cochrane, managing director of Moody's Analytics, showed today's Brookings audience a map of the nation with states where employment could be expected to rebound the quickest.

A dozen states, including urban-dominant economic powerhouses such as New York, California, and Illinois, were colored bright red -- meaning that their employment recovery could be expected after 2013, or even later. A city-by-city map of housing price declines had more bad news for northeastern and West coast cities, showing that the foreclosure crisis has yet to hit bottom in those areas.

What does this mean for urban priorities, particularly transportation and infrastructure? The percentage of city officials reporting to the National League of Cities (NLC) that they are "less able" to meet financial needs jumped from 3 percent in 2007 to 88 percent in 2009, the highest number in the 26 years the NLC has measured metro fiscal health.

When the NLC asked urban officials to describe where they were cutting spending, 62 percent said capital infrastructure projects were being delayed or canceled. That high number suggests sustained, intense cuts in cities' ability to work on their built environments, NLC research director Chris Hoene said today. "[Cities] are going to be in trouble for years," he predicted.

How is the economic downturn affecting city services? Transit riders in many areas are sadly familiar with service cuts caused by budget austerity, but other aspects of urban community maintenance are dying out.

Nutter was forced to cut residential street cleaning and shutter nearly half of Philadelphia's public pools to help close his billion-dollar fiscal shortfall. Elaine Walker, mayor of Bowling Green, Kentucky, noted that "we were building sidewalks to the tune of $1 million a year. We're not doing that anymore."

The mayors had much more to say about how federal and state governments could begin repairing relations with local leaders that have been "irreparably damaged," as Scott Smith, mayor of Mesa, Arizona, put it. (Stay tuned for more coverage.)

But Walker suggested that the solution to the nation's urban budget crisis would have to begin with a fundamental shift in what Americans expect from -- and how they think about -- their elected government. Bolstering her theory, David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal (who led the mayors' debate) quoted a recent observation from Congress' chief budget adviser:

The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services the people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are willing to send to the government to finance those services.

A good day for the Gold Line Foothill Extension who's future Monrovia Station is depicted in this image from the Bottleneck Blog.

(editor's note: For more of a blow-by-blow from today's meeting visit the twitter feeds for LA Streetsblog, Soap Box and I Will Ride)

When the process to get from public meetings to a final vote takes over a year and a half, you can't expect the final vote to come without a fight and without some theatrics.  With people in costume actually outshining uber-gadfly John Walsh, Board-Member-for-a-Day Tom LaBonge pinch hitting for his colleague on the City Council Jose Huizar and perhaps strangest of all a short, supportive completely non-snarky comment by Stephen Box the meeting took over five hours but ended with a result most were happy with: a finalized Long Range Transportation Plan.

But the stars of today's hearing were not the people in the audience and those testifying, but a pair of County Supervisors from opposite ends of the County: Gloria Molina and Mark Ridley-Thomas.  Each found an effective way to advocate for their favored local project.  Per their styles, Molina used a "woe-is-me" strategy combined with a level of histrionics while Ridley-Thomas refused to back off his amendment to the plan which, while hardly earth shattering, could lead to accelerated time-lines for two of Metro's more controversial projects.

The key provision of the Ridley-Thomas ammendment mostly are aimed at protecting funding for buses, require staff to aggressively pursue federal funds for the Gold Line Foothill Extension and Crenshaw Corridor Project, require Metro to provide operations dollars for the Foothill Extension whenever it is completed and required quarterly updates on three highway widenings.  The aptly named The Source has the original wording of the amendment or you can find it on the Metro Board Agenda if you feel the urge to scroll through it.  However, you need to go to the Supervisor's website to get the final wording of the amendment that passed.

So what does this mean?  It means that the highway and rail projects that were approved in Measure R are now officially part of Metro's plans for the future.  A time-line was adopted, that you can read here, but as Metro earns federal funds and projects complete their environmental phases those time-lines can be amended.   You can find a quick outline of those time-lines here.  Also passed today were rules protecting the 20% of Measure R dedicated to buses and a $324 million projected budget for bicycle and pedestrian projects over the next 30 years.  And, as the Bus Riders Union tried just about every way imaginable to warn us, it means future fare hikes.

Now that the plan is approved, Metro can officially lobby the state and federal governments for the money to build the highway and transit projects within the plan.  If the plan had not been passed, supporters argued that it would be a disaster for Metro and Los Angeles County.  That bold declaration makes me wonder why they didn't pass it any other time in the past twenty months since they held public hearings.

On its twitter feed, I Will Ride announced that the Gold Line Foothill Extension and Crenshaw Corridor were placed as a priority ahead of the Westside Subway for "New Starts" funding, but given the unanimous passage of the LRTP and the Mayor's fixation on the Subway to the Sea, I'll believe that those projects get dollars ahead of the Subway when I see it.  (editor's note: In the comments section Dan Wentzel explains that Crenshaw and Foothill were moved ahead of only Phases IV and V of the Subway to the Sea.  The Subway extension from Wilshire-Western to Westwood remain ahead of Foothill and Crenshaw.)

As for Molina's part, she took the floor for the better part of a half hour with other local stakeholders concerned with the safety for the Eastside Extension, due to open in November.  In an angry rant in which she accused the Metro staff of favrotism and outright lieing to her, Molina channeled both Damien Goodmon and the Bus Rider's Union as she went on the warpath against just about everyone on the dais except Metro CEO Art Leahy who she felt was trying to help make the line safe as best he could.  The strangest part of her rant was where she said she would be at the opening, assuring her constituents the line was safe, even though she wasn't sure that it would be.

While I give Molina a hard time, her criticisms sound similar to those voiced by former Board Member and City Council Transportation Committee Member Richard Alarcon, who has also been vocal that he doesn't trust Metro staff.  That makes two prominent Latino officials who have intimate knowledge of the Board expressing district and concerns.  I can't help but wonder if maybe Metro has a Latino problem.

So.CA.TA in Fullerton in 2005 Photo: Trainweb.com

In my experience the most productive events to do outreach about transit are transportation related ones versus community street fairs, environmental expos, etc. Openings of new Metrolink stations and Metro fixed guideway projects, such as the Green Line, Red Line, and Orange Line, have always been excellent in that regard, along with the occasional transit fairs held at community centers and the like. The annual Alternative Energy and Transportation Expo in Santa Monica and Fullerton Railroad Days, which is currently in limbo due to local politics, have been very well attended events that I very much enjoy participating in.

As the Eastside Gold Line extension opening approaches, quite likely on Nov. 14th per a Metro staff report first noticed and posted by commentor LAofAnaheim on the Streetsblog Eastside opening thread, I have been looking back at what I have learned and experienced during my years staffing a booth on behalf of the Southern California Transit Advocates.

You get a wide variety of questions. Some are quite practical, like how do I get to LAX from downtown or the San Fernando Valley on a bus. Or a question about the status of a particular proposal -- at the recent alt car expo a gentleman asked about having direct rail service linking Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was able to share with him the progress the Coast Rail Coordinating Council, whose agendas I receive, has had in that regard and the obstacles it faces, especially of funding and cooperation (or lack thereof) of the host freight railroad (U.P.).

The questions you get asked often depended on the location. At Fullerton people asked about the Metrolink half hour service in Orange County that OCTA plans to start next year. In Santa Monica you would be asked about the progress of the Exposition light rail project and westward extension of the Purple Line in the Wilshire corridor. And for some reason wherever you are folks are always asking about the progress of having high speed service to Vegas (aka maglev to Anaheim).

For over a decade I have had outreach materials from the California High Speed Rail Authority at our booths and have sought input from attendees about the proposed statewide bullet train network. With few exceptions the public would embrace it even as officials and bureaucrats fixated on cost, routing etc. This gave me a notion passage of the long-delayed bonds wasn't a pipedream -- sometimes ordinary people are way ahead of the experts and so called leaders.

Then you get the occasional perverse individual, someone who plants themselves in front of your display space and declares that public transportation is a waste of money and that no one rides rail. I usually let these types spout off because it is obvious their minds are set and any attempt at dialogue would serve no purpose. It is better to let them deliver their philippic and afterward thank them for sharing their point of view. They usually stroll away with a self satisfied thin smile as they seek out the next exhibitor to denounce. I do wonder why anyone would make the effort to go to an event whose purpose is anathema to them. Don't they have something more enjoyable to do on a Saturday morning? Or maybe it gives them some sort of perverse pleasure engaging in smug vilifying.

This year at the alt car expo I encountered a variation on this with a gentleman whose comments lead up to the fact that public transit is subsidized and is not a profit making activity. He held up his hand as if that fact negated the need for any further discussion and strode away. There are people who think capitalism is the be all and end all and have no conception than anything other than profit can be the purpose of an activity.

Then we have the exotic technology true believers--folks touting a variety of solutions like monorail or maglev or personal rapid transit or (fill in the blank). I even met at the 2006 Alt-car Expo Brian C. Brooks, who the past few years has gotten some attention for his proposal of criss-crossing Los Angeles county with monorails built along flood control channels. The essential problem with these folks was summed up by David Brewster, publisher of a Seattle-based daily online newspaper called Crosscut. As quoted in the Nov. 5, 2007 Christian Science Monitor article "Mass transit plan makes waves in Seattle Ecotopia" regarding policy discussions being dominated by that those that are "... cantankerous, contentious, and think they can design a better transportation system because they did it last night in their garage."

One would think it is self-obvious billions are not spent based on scrawls made on the back of an envelope, but for a true believer once one has what they know is the answer all that is left is to work backward to prove it is what needs to be done (ignoring and or minimizing the downside, contrary data, political obstacles, etc.). I had one guy one Saturday morning at the alt cat expo who shoved into my hand a sheet he had prepared on Personal Rapid Transit. Once I started to point out the attributes that limit its application to being a circulator/collector at airports and the like and that it isn't well suited for being a mass transit solution he snatched the sheet away and stalked off, angry at my temerity of not being an instant convert to his cause.

I do a lot of describing realpolitik as to funding and planning. A woman who lived in Orange County at one of the Fullerton shows told me a particular street she lived on needed bus service. This was solely based on anecdotal perceptions--she had no supporting facts as to commercial or industrial destinations it would serve that could at least provide some sense of whether such service would be productive. When I asked how well she knew the local political scene and what points of influence she could use to reach a member of the OCTA Board she confessed she didn't even know which County Supervisor's district she resided in. She had only a vague impression to justify what she wanted and no means of effectively advocating for the proposal. I tried to offer some fundamental first steps she could take but must admit I had qualms that someone who to that point had been so disengaged from the political process was unlikely to be successful as an advocate. But for what it was worth, I tried to share with her my knowledge of how one goes about advocating for a new bus line.

And then once in a while you'll have an attendee spontaneously express heartfelt thanks. It is a small thing but it is nice to know a few folks grasp the value of what we do. It isn't why do what we do, but we appreciate the kind thoughts when they do come our way. It helps you slog through the mounds of stupidity than you usually encounter as an advocate.

A few years ago when I was part of a theater production on Santa Monica Blvd. we worked hard to fill the seats and we advertised, we passed out flyers, we called the press, we sent out notices and we invited our friends and family, hoping to fill the house. Through it all we were always struggling with the fact that the streets are congested, traffic is miserable, parking is limited and our audience invariably showed up pissed off and frazzled by their journey, making for tough audiences!

Somewhere along the way I realized that we were going about it all wrong. Imagine if local theaters (there are over 100 in the Hollywood area alone) encouraged their audience members to walk, ride a bike or take the Metro. Imagine if local theaters promoted the local cafes, coffee shops, pubs and restaurants that surround them and encourage their audience to arrive early, stay late and spend lots of money in the local community. Imagine if local theaters encouraged their audience to come as a group, make an adventure out of the experience, make going to the theater a social experience rather than something you just Tweet about.

Inevitably, it always came back to parking. The Theaters promoted parking. They gave driving instructions. They promised secure parking. They promised valet parking. They promised parking validation. But as soon as the show ended, the cars had to go and there went the audience. No mingling, no socializing, no hanging out and spending lots of money in the neighborhood. They had to move that car to its next destination.

That was when I went on the warpath and started reaching out to the local community, starting with those who lived close enough to walk to the Theater. I was surprised to find that some of the neighbors didn't know about their local theater, some had never really paid attention, and nobody had ever reached out to them. We made some great friends.

Since I was often riding my bike to the theater, I started paying more attention to how we could accommodate cyclists. It was bad! When I rode my bike, I had to park it on the street, locking it to a pole and praying throughout the performance that my bike would still be there. I looked for ways to provide safe bike parking and to promote that rather than driving instructions.

Sometimes I took the bus or train to the theater and my experience there was sometimes quite bad, getting out of a show late at night only to find that the bus had stopped running.

There are two things we can do to change the world. The first is provide information and the second is to have fun.

I started calling theater companies to post transit information and bike parking map instruction to their websites. Sacred Fools Theatre, within 30 minutes posted public transportation info and bikemetro.com on their directions page. They became one of my favorite theater companies, still to this day. Within a week I organized a bike ride to their theater and 10 people joined me for La Bete, a production that garnered them quite a few awards.

The second company was the Santa Monica Playhouse, who got out into the street and looked up the various buses that passed by their venue and posted their information as well as the bikemetro link. The Boston Court in Pasadena, the Lillian Theatre and The SkyPilot Theatre followed their lead and I liked them so much, I ended up joining the SkyPilot company.

Since then, I have posted several requests for bus and metro directions and bikemetro posting on theater industry group websites and I've also sent emails to various theater companies who I like to visit.

I also started a tradition of having more fun. Some of my favorite theater events are the ones that were social and where I could hang out with my friends long after the play was over. Our first M.A.D. ride (Metro ADventure) was via the Red Line Station and to this day it is one of my favorite LA Theater memories.

The bike rides with friends to Sacred Fools and to the SkyPilot Theatre I treasure dearly because not only did I get to introduce some new audience members to LA Theater but also because the social element is just as important to me as being exposed to performance art. And we together, on our bikes or via the Metro, explored a bit of the neighborhood, its restaurants and its charm, that we could have never done would we have driven our cars to the show.

Two things happen when we choose alternative modes of travel. We tend to be more relaxed, we are in no rush to pick up our car from the lot that might be closing or charging and we are more likely to go out to eat afterward at a local restaurant, to end the evening together with our friends.

Ask your theater company to post public transportation information on their website and find out if they can provide secure bike parking. Just having this information on the website could encourage people to try something new because they are given an option. Invite your neighbors to see your shows. If they walk down the street to your venue, the streets are going to be safer because of it. Let your customers know about local restaurants so they can stick around afther the show. The businesses will be thankful for it!

As for me, I'm planning the next bike ride to the show The End of Civilization, from Hollywood to Toluca Lake, on November 14th. If you'd like to join me, keep an eye out for the post on illuminatela.com or email me at info@illuminatela.com.

The Obama administration has brought both good news and bad news to transit riders. But here's a positive sign you haven't heard before, straight from Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff: In the nine months of the new presidency, the FTA has fielded more requests for information "directly from the White House" than in the entire eight years of the Bush administration.

President Obama, on a train. (Photo: NYT)

Rogoff, formerly a veteran aide to the Senate Appropriations Committee, dropped that intriguing fact and several others in a speech yesterday at the American Public Transportation Association's annual meeting in Orlando.

In fact, the FTA chief openly marveled at the White House's appetite for talking up transit.

"[E]ven though we provide an unprecedented amount of material to the White House on these issues," Rogoff said, "we still don't know who is writing all this stuff. We don't need to know. We just need to soak it in and keep leaning forward."

In no-holds-barred style, Rogoff, also declared an end to the days of highways taking precedence over transit because the former falsely purport to be"paid for" by user fees.

"That paradigm is now dead," he said. "It's been dead for well over a year, [since] the highway trust fund first had to be bailed out with an $8 billion infusion of general fund revenues. The only thing that's happened since then is that Congress was required to put billions more in general fund revenues into the highway trust fund to keep our highway investments flowing."

Check out Rogoff's complete remarks after the jump.

Before I begin, I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Dr. Bev Scott. This has been a challenging year for the MARTA - just as it has been challenging for so many transit agencies across the country. Even with all those challenges, Dr. Scott found the time to be a true leader for all of us.

I was very grateful for her participation on behalf of APTA in our stakeholders meeting on transit safety. And I was thrilled that her tenure as APTA chairman could culminate in the winning of the largest single TIGGER grant of the 43 grants we awarded under that extremely competitive $100 million program.

I also wanted to congratulate Mattie Carter. We learned yesterday in her address that APTA will continue under strong and passionate leadership under Mattie Carter. This is a great milestone for Ms. Carter as well as a milestone for all of transit in Memphis. I look forward to her leadership in the year to come.

I also want to thank APTA for extending such a warm welcome to Secretary Ray LaHood yesterday.  We truly have a great friend and advocate for transit in Secretary LaHood. He has been a great partner when it has come to telling America all that we are accomplishing under the Recovery Act.

When you want to evaluate the Obama Administration's commitment to public transportation, you don't have to look any farther than the Recovery Act. Our agency was granted an 80 percent increase to our budget in that bill. That's a far higher increase than was given to any other mode of transportation and perhaps any other Federal agency funded under the Recovery Act. The only exception was the new $8 billion investment in high speed rail - yet another investment in public transportation.

I will admit that when I first took the reigns of the FTA at the end of May there was deep nervousness throughout the agency of our ability to meet our 50 percent obligation goal by September 1^st. The fact that we reached 90 percent obligation by that September 1^st deadline is a testament to the extraordinary hard work of the FTA staff both in headquarters and regions and the hard work of all of our transit grantees at making things happen.

At a time when Congress is revaluating our entire Federal investment in surface transportation and how we will pay for it, it is essential that we show continued progress with the Recovery Act. It is not enough that we just obligate dollars. Our charge is to put people to work - to get those dollars disbursed in an immediate productive way.

That obligation deadline was a milestone for the FTA.  It was a huge challenge to surge 80 percent in a single year. Some in the FTA staff are appropriately hoping that they can now take a breath. But I have had to tell them - there will be no breath. There is too much to do.  The President expects more of the FTA than any prior president since Lyndon Johnson. And we will fulfill those expectations.  The FTA will continue to lean forward.  In everything we do.

I know it's not often that FTA administrators quote philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard, but Kierkegaard did say that, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." I plan to see to it that the FTA continues to lean forward in the years to come. I need the transit industry to lean forward with me.  Now is the time to lean forward because we have a President who sees public transportation as being at the very center of his vision for a more prosperous future and a more livable America.

My staff has told me that we at the FTA have responded to more inquiries and provided more information that comes directly from the White House in President Obama's first nine months in office than we have provided in the last eight years. For us at the FTA, this White House is "high maintenance" – and we expect it to stay that way.

Within just a few months of taking office, President Obama told the nation that: "global climate change and our reliance on foreign oil have … created tremendous national security challenges. To solve these problems and create new economic opportunities we must make our transportation system cleaner and more efficient."

The Vice President of the United States just a few weeks ago stated that, "all over the country, resources are being put to work not only creating jobs now but also investing in the future. A future that strengthens our transit system, makes us more energy efficient, and increases safety."

Continually, we hear voicings from the President and the Vice President that go directly to the heart of our mission and your mission.  We hear them, seemingly, every other week.

I’ll tell you a small confession, even though we provide an unprecedented amount of material to the White House on these issues, we still don't know who is writing all this stuff. We don't need to know. We just need to soak it in and keep leaning forward.

And it's not just the White House that is concerned about greenhouse gas emissions or congestion relief or the need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  The new majorities in Congress are speaking with an equally strong voice. No longer is public transportation just viewed as an appropriate solution if it can be done cheaply enough. Our enterprise is viewed as worthy in and of itself. That's why it's time to lean forward.

Yesterday, I told you that Secretary LaHood is making sure that FTA always has a full seat at the table when it comes to the debate over our transportation challenges. We all know that wasn't always the case.

For so many years we were expected to be the lesser cousin when it came to surface transportation – the runt of the litter. We were told to keep our expectations low because we required a public subsidy. We were told to not compare ourselves to highway investments because highway investments paid for themselves through the Highway Trust Fund while transit investments needed a combination of funds from the Trust Fund and the General Fund.

Well I have news for those of you that have been busy operating transit systems and not focusing on the debate in Washington of recent. That paradigm is now dead. It's been dead for well over a year when the Highway Trust Fund first had to be bailed out with an $8 billion infusion of General Fund revenues. The only thing that's happened since then is that Congress was required to put billions more in General Fund revenues into the Highway Trust Fund to keep our highway investments flowing.

And mark my words, before all the debate is done on the financing of highways and transit systems in the future, there will be yet more General Fund transfers into the Highway Trust Fund to keep the Trust Fund afloat.

My purpose here is not to revel in the problems facing the highway program – I would like nothing more than to see the highway program get back on a firm footing. Let's remember the Federal aid highway program continues to flex over a billion dollars a year to public transit. In fact, just from the Recovery Act, we're expecting to see roughly $300 million in highway funds flexed over for transit. And the reality is that the Mass Transit Account of the Trust Fund isn't in good shape either.  We may get through this fiscal year, but we won't get very far into the next fiscal year before we too will need an infusion of cash.

My point in raising this is to remind everyone that we are all in the same lifeboat - highways and transit together. Everything is up for grabs, including the Federal financing of our enterprise. Which is why we all must lean forward and explain that yes, our enterprise provides all those benefits you want, and yes, it requires subsidies to do it.  Just like highways. We need to lean forward and make this case without apology. 

How are we at the FTA leaning forward? We are being aggressive in articulating how transit fits into our broader agenda and how transit has to fit into future Federal budgets.

We are aggressively tackling changes to the New Starts decision process.  That has been a core focus this month as we prepare to recommend a streamlined process to the Secretary. We currently have a process that is unnecessarily complicated, frustrating, lengthy, and positively incomprehensible to the public, the Congress, most of the transit community, and even senior managers at the FTA. 

As I'm sometimes required to remind my staff – we are not charged with curing cancer here.  We are deciding whether to invest some money into laying some rail or buying some paint to make an existing street lane into a designated bus lane.  

We must stop our constant pursuit of a process that may be incrementally more perfect. Instead, we need a process that is faster; more understandable and defensible to the Members of Congress; and the taxpayers that are actually paying for these projects. 

You should note that I didn't say that we are working on improving our New Starts "approval process."  I said we were working on improving our New Starts "decision process." Note that I didn't say that the goal was a faster approval.  I said it was about a faster decision.

Inevitably a streamlined process, for some projects, means an expedited decision that the Federal Government will not participate.  And when we know we are not going to participate, we are not going to pretend otherwise. 

I want to be clear.  This administration wants more transit options for more people.  We are leaning forward.  The goal is a process that provides a faster path to a decision, a process that is understandable, and a process that better ensures that we get the investment at a price and on a timetable that is honest and realistic. We are not retooling our processes so that the FTA will participate in every twinkle of every mayor's eye.

No question that we need a vastly improved process.  But I must also point out that periodically the FTA has gotten a bum rap on the time it takes to get a project approved.  There are plenty of examples where projects sat in the pipeline for years.  They sat there because they didn't have any local match.  In some cases, they endured one or two terms when the mayor or the city counsel or the state legislature was hostile to the project.  That certainly wasn't the fault of the FTA.  But then, when they finally work through all that, they like to blame the FTA for all the years it took to bring the project to construction.

Part of our new process will mean that we won't dance for years and years with projects that are making no progress because of local circumstances.  Under our streamlined approach, we are going to end our involvement with that project and focus our staff resources on getting the projects that can be approved to the finish line.   FTA will be focusing our efforts on getting projects built. FTA will not be focusing our efforts on a process designed to maximize consulting fees paid by projects that will never get built. 

That said, FTA will also be leaning forward on helping transit projects obtain that local match.  One of the things that I have been struck by as I travel around the country is the strength of the business community in either helping or hurting a project that is seeking to get built. 

We have wonderful examples where businesses have seen the benefits that will come to them and have agreed to tax themselves to make the project happen.  We have other examples where businesses have been singularly focused on avoiding those taxes or avoiding the disruption that comes with the construction phase.

I intend to stand up an informal voluntary group of business leaders from around the country that will serve as ambassadors for transit.  The kind of business leaders that can convince skeptical businesspeople in other communities that transit is in the interest of their bottom line.  There will be more announcements on this soon.

We will be leaning forward on safety. As you heard Secretary LaHood say yesterday, we are determined to close the gap that has been known for years. We also will be focusing on the State of Good Repair (SGR) of our transit agencies.  Those two issues – safety and the SGR – are inextricably linked. We are a safe industry.  That has to be remembered. 

But we need to lean forward on safety because even our newer systems are aging.   Because this administration wants more transit service and more transit options, we must also ensure that transit is perceived by all as safe. We must focus on ensuring that a safe industry stays safe, and keeping catastrophic accidents from pushing passengers back onto the highways. 

Our goal is to help agencies steadily raise their standards of safety and accurately identify their risks.  APTA has done a great service on developing voluntary standards.  Together, we can do more. 

The science of effective SMSs has come a very long way.  By strengthening our partnerships with State Safety Oversight and bringing resources to the efforts, we can lean forward and guarantee that a safe industry stays safe, even as it ages.

For all the talk on New Starts, we need to remember that the vast majority of our enterprise doesn't run rail service and doesn't plan to in the near future. We need to stay focused on the safety of our bus operators.

I am pleased that today, FTA launched a new website designed to help rural and small urban transit providers build and implement effective safety, security and emergency preparedness programs.

What does this website mean to the thousands of rural and small urban transit providers across the Nation? It means having quick and easy access to practical and relevant information resources. It means having a tool to help you assess your program's strengths and weaknesses. It means having the ability to ask questions and receive answers from peers on critical safety matters.  The site will give users quick and easy access to a comprehensive resource library that houses over 1,000 technical assistance documents.

Identifying safety as our number one priority is not just about rhetoric.  As Secretary LaHood stated, we plan to lean forward in this area in ways that we never have before.

That is just a few ways by which FTA is leaning forward.  I need you to lean forward with me.  We need to maintain the outstanding partnership that FTA and APTA has had over the years.

Anyone who has had to push a car out of a ditch knows that if two people are pushing, but not in the same direction and not at the same time, you don't get very far.  But if you lean forward and push forward, in the same direction and simultaneously, you get the car out of the ditch. 

We are in a period of extraordinary opportunity for public transportation.  Let's not miss this opportunity. Let's lean forward, push, in the same direction, together and simultaneously. If we do, we will accomplish great things. 

Thank you.

But the subsidy debate often overlooks the government tax exemption for workers' parking expenses. And federal parking subsidies are skyrocketing, as Subsidyscope revealed yesterday in its data-packed report on U.S. transport spending: the value of tax-free parking will reach $3 billion this year, compared with $500 million in subsidies for transit use.

The imbalance might be corrected if the government treated parking and transit equally when it came to tax benefits. Workers can write off a maximum of slightly more than $200 in monthly parking benefits, while the maximum tax-free value of transit passes is about $100 less per month.

Subsidyscope, a joint project of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Sunlight Foundation , pored over federal records to produce a searchable database of transportation spending dating back to the year 2000. Their researchers' conclusions found that highways received $30 billion in federal support last year -- more than three times as much as transit, which got $9 billion.

How much of that $30 billion was a subsidy? It's tough to say, according to Subsidyscope, since state DOTs are not required to report the details of how federal road aid is distributed. Still, the overwhelming majority of federal transport programs contain subsidies (see the chart after the jump for more details).

A more classic example of federal subsidy is programs that transfer the risk of new projects onto the federal government. The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA), which offers loans to states and localities at a low interest rate, is the transport sector's major source of credit subsidies from Washington -- and the majority of TIFIA loans go to highway projects.

The report, timed to coincide with the growing debate over transit's role in the final version of the congressional climate bill, includes a wealth of useful and surprising data about how last year's much-discussed rise in transit use translates into reduced driving and environmental benefits.

For example, that 10 percent increase in transit ridership is already happening in five states, all of which also saw a notable drop in vehicle miles traveled last year. And guess which five saw double-digit rises in ridership? Not New York or Massachusetts -- but Louisiana, Idaho, Utah, Delaware, and Maryland.

"A lot of [transit] growth that we're seeing isn't in typical big cities," Environment America transportation advocate Rob McCulloch, a co-author of today's report, said in an interview. "It's in suburbs and smaller communities where people are opting in. We think that's really where the opportunity is."

The report describes a 10 percent increase in transit ridership as a "high but realistic target," but it goes on to make a clear case for setting such a goal:

[I]n 15 years such an approach could reduce transportation oil consumption by 20 billion gallons per year — equivalent to what we currently import from the Persian Gulf. This would also result in an annual reduction of 180 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution — more than four times the current benefit conferred by public transportation.

That annual cut of 180 million tons of CO2 would amount to 3 percent reduction below 2005 emissions levels every year. The climate bill passed by the House in June aims to reduce emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels over the next 11 years, making a national transit-ridership target a key weapon in the arsenal of climate policy-makers.

McCulloch and his co-authors make several policy recommendations to lawmakers now working on transport and energy proposals, but their most powerful message comes in the framing department.

At this month's University of Virginia infrastructure conference, one popular lament was that transportation lacks a national "story," a coherent and catchy appeal to Americans from all walks of life. Bicycle and transit advocates may well disagree, as may state DOT officials who think of more roads as the be-all, end-all of infrastructure policy.

Apparently unfamiliar with the concept of irony, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) has drafted an angry letter to the chief of Washington D.C.'s Metro, complaining that protesters at last weekend's 9/12 "tea party" had difficulty traveling by transit -- the very transit system that Brady voted against aiding, and the epitome of government spending that the tea partiers claim to oppose.

Tea partiers protesting Big Government's intrusion -- and its failure to adequately support transit, of course. (Photo: WaPo)

Brady's monumental audacity has awakened a welcome chorus of boos from the liberal blogosphere.

Steve Benen asked how the Texas conservative could demand that the government provide "a basic level of transit service" for tea partiers but not a basic level of health insurance. Atrios observed that the episode exposes non-urbanites' conception of cities: as "big urban theme parks."

But the most interesting response to Brady's hilarious lament came from Metro itself, which took the episode with the utmost seriousness. A spokeswoman from the transit system says the "circumstances surrounding the large crowds will be researched and a response will be sent to Brady."

Here's a suggestion for that response: Let us spend money on operating costs, congressman!

Check out Brady's full -- and uncivil -- letter to Metro chief John Catoe after the jump.

To Mr. Catoe:
I write this letter on behalf of my constituents of the 8th Congressional District of Texas – many of whom traveled at great expense and time to our nation’s capital to exercise their right of free speech in the Taxpayer March on D.C. which was held on Saturday, September 12.  These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama Administration.      

Based upon numerous eye-witness reports by participants in the march, it is clear METRO did not adequately prepare for the influx of Americans traveling to D.C. for this historic event.  I want an explanation why.

During the march, I heard complaints from elderly veterans in wheel chairs who were denied use of the subway because not enough METRO cars were available and the METRO cars that did arrive were full to overflowing capacity.

An 80 year old woman and her 60 year old daughter were forced to walk – and eventually pay for a cab – due to overcrowded conditions on the METRO.  I heard many such complaints.  These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a greater effort to simply provide a basic level of transit service for them.

METRO was certainly aware of the march due to widespread media attention ahead of time.  While the turnout was certainly much larger than predicted, it appears that METRO added no additional capacity to its regular weekend schedule.

I request that METRO promptly provide my office with a full summary of all preparations and actions taken by the agency ahead of and during the gathering, especially related to additional capacity, service, and security.

Sincerely,
Kevin Brady

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)

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.

• the ARC transit tunnel connecting New York City and New Jersey 
• Utah's Mid-Jordan light rail, Draper light rail, and Weber-to-Salt Lake City commuter rail projects
• the Sound Transit light rail extension in the Seattle area
• the West, East, and Gold rail transit corridors in the Denver area
• Northwest/Southwest light rail and the Houston light rail extension in Texas
• the Dulles Corridor extension of D.C.'s Metro into Virginia
• the Sacramento light rail extension
• Honolulu's proposed rail transit line
  
• the Miami area's Metrorail Orange Line extension
  
• Wilshire Boulevard bus-only lanes and the Metro Gold Line extension in L.A.
• the Blue Line extension in Charlotte, N.C.
  
• the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line rehabilitation project
• bus rapid transit from Bellevue to Redmond in Washington state
• the Tennessee statewide bus program
• Commuter rail improvements on the Wilmington to Newark route in Delaware
  
• regional rail from Ann Arbor to Detroit
  
• Stamford urban transitway in Connecticut

Fairgoers in Minnesota depart a private charter bus that benefited from federal rules barring competition with public transit agencies. (Photo: Star-Trib)

This year, it's Minnesota State Fair attendees who are contending with privatized bus service that left them waiting for hours and caused "ugly scenes," as the local Star-Tribune reports today.

The rule was intended to shield "private charter operators from unfair competition by federally subsidized public transit agencies," as the Bush administration wrote in its initial regulatory justification. 

As a result, public transit agencies were barred from offering bus services to special events if a private company was able to do the job instead. The rule prompted outcries from the American Public Transportation Association, but it has yet to be overturned by the Obama administration.

In a June letter to senior members of the House transportation committee, 19 lawmakers -- three of them Republican -- asked for the rule to be reversed in the next long-term federal infrastructure bill. From the letter, spearheaded by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and David Dreier (R-CA):

By making public transit agencies ineligible to provide what has always been considered public transit service, this ill-advised [Federal Transit Administration] rulemaking contradicts federal goals to encourage public transportation to alleviate traffic congestion and improve air quality nationwide.

Charter bus service is reserved and exclusive service to events, many of which are traditionally open only to a select group. Service open to any member of the public to board and ride, without advance reservation, to a public event has always been considered public service and that definition should be restored.

That long-term infrastructure bill is likely to be delayed for at least a year at the request of the White House, however. The question is whether the FTA is willing to undo the pro-privatization rule on its own before the bill is taken up.

(Photo: T4A)

T4A's report illustrates the punishing effect of such cuts on transit riders, many of them low-income workers, with a set of well-trammeled statistics: demand hit a 50-year high in 2008; every dollar invested in transit produces an estimated $6 in economic growth; transit is far safer than car travel and provides greater public health benefits.

But when it comes to the political battle over remaking national transport priorities, T4A's transit cuts map -- viewable right here -- speaks loudest of all.

Transit fare increases and service reductions, T4A found, are concentrated in major cities and along the coasts. And as the current health care conflagration has shown, lawmakers rarely wield political power that's commensurate with the share of the population they represent.

As the Washington Post's Alec MacGillis catalogued in a commentary last week, Senate influence is particularly concentrated in the hands of small-state denizens such as Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D) of Montana, who fought to remove a provision helping transit agencies with punitive tax shelters from last year's auto bailout bill.

Per MacGillis:

And then there's the Senate's age-old distortion of distributive politics, in which goodies are doled out on anything but a per-capita basis. California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are among the 10 states that get the least back per tax dollar sent to Washington; Alaska, the Dakotas and West Virginia are among those that get the most.

In that context, it's not surprising that federal support for metro-area priorities such as transit is so perilously thin. Even in the House, where urban representatives lead several key committees, transit backers have yet to convince the Ways and Means panel to move forward with a solution to the immense revenue gap that has stalled progress on new long-term transport legislation.

A letter sent last month urging Ways and Means chairman Charles Rangel (D) -- who represents a transit-heavy district in New York City -- to press on with a transportation bill this year was signed by 15 of the committee's 26 Democrats. Yet metro-area members such as Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), whose district is near Oakland, and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) of Atlanta were absent.

And the legislation that T4A's report singled out as a concrete boost for transit agencies, Rep. Russ Carnahan's (D-MO) proposal to provide federal help with operating costs, does not count Rangel as one of its 60 co-sponsors. The bill also lacks a Senate counterpart, despite the presence of two transportation-minded Democrats in leadership positions (Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Environment Committee chairman Barbara Boxer of California).

Of course, the political savvy of rural lawmakers does not automatically mean transportation reform must fall by the wayside; West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D), chairman of the Commerce Committee, has taken the lead on a plan to set national performance targets for reductions in emissions and vehicle miles traveled.

The state agency overseeing safety on this D.C. Metro train has almost one full-time employee, according to the Washington Post. (Photo: VisitingDC.com)

The Obama administration plans to reform this federalist approach to transit safety, which has allowed the D.C. Metro to postpone installation of a backup train monitoring system suggested by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Aside from California's 12-person oversight panel, the average state safety agency has less than one full-time employee, FTA chief Peter Rogoff said last week.

Meanwhile, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) recently ruled that "positive train control" crash protection systems must be in use on commuter and inter-city passenger rail systems -- though it lacks the power to extend that mandate to rail transit.

"What's more important than whether the FTA [sets national safety standards] or whether the FRA does it is that someone does it who has the teeth and the authority and the funding and the personnel to really compel the attention of the transit agencies," Rogoff told the Senate Banking Committee.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced legislation two weeks ago that would authorize the U.S. DOT to begin setting national safety guidelines for rail transit. In her speech introducing the bill, Mikulski said she was responding to an NTSB briefing she received after the D.C. Metro crash on June 22.

This is when I learned the NTSB had recommended that the ... FTA establish federal standards for metro systems but the FTA had not taken action. Apparently, the FTA doesn't think it has this authority. Well, my bill fixes that.

But how does the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), which represents the nation's transit networks, view the prospect of federal oversight? APTA President William Millar told the Post he was wary of "throw[ing] the baby out with the bath water," given that transit remains far safer than car travel, but he refrained from weighing in on the Mikulski bill.

Late Update: APTA spokeswoman Virginia Miller told Streetsblog Capitol Hill that the group "has not yet taken a position on whether or not the FTA should have regulatory oversight" but plans to work with Congress and the administration "to continue to improve safety in an already very safe industry."

A new survey released yesterday by the Public Policy Institute of California has been getting a lot of play in the press because of the strong support Californians are showing for Greenhouse Gas reduction programs, even in the midst of the current recession and budget crisis.

Often times when politicians talk about climate change, they tend to leave transportation reform out of the conversation; choosing to look at hybrid and other low- and zero-emission cars as the solution. However, the PPIC asked Californians what they thought about transit expansion and gas prices.

The results? Californians are tired of paying such a high price for gas and want more alternatives. From the PPIC's press release:

Californians (69%) are less likely than last year (76%) to report that gas prices are a financial hardship. But large majorities of some groups do, particularly Latinos (85%) and residents with annual household incomes under $40,000 (83%). And although the percentage of Californians who drive to work alone has declined 12 points since 2002, commuting patterns among employed Californians (63% drive alone, 16% carpool, 9% take public transit) are similar to last year...

...Three in four residents (77%) say the state should focus transportation planning dollars on expanding public transit and using the existing network more efficiently, up 10 points since August 2004 (67%). Just 18 percent say the state should focus on building freeways and highways.

Over at The Switchboard, the Natural Resources Defense Council's official blog, they break down those numbers for transit support by region, and what might be a surprise to some, but shouldn't be after the support for Measure R, Los Angeles is actually slightly above average when it comes to transit support.

The Switchboard goes on to state the obvious...with Californians crying out for more and better transit options; Governor Schwarzenegger and Caltrans continue to push for massive highway projects while fighting desperately in court for the right to rob funds dedicated by taxpayers to transit projects.

And Californians instinctively recognize not only the importance of transit, but the need to make our entire transportation system more efficient.  The environmental benefits of such an approach are made clear in a new publication, co-sponsored by NRDC, and released earlier this week: Moving Cooler: Transportation Policies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions.   This first-of-its-kind study looks at nearly 50 measures and combinations thereof, assessing their potential to save fuel, reduce heat-trapping pollution and save consumers money. 

California’s policymakers would be well-advised to read Moving Cooler.  As the Kinks said, Give the People What They Want.

Since I appreciate a good Kinks reference as much as the next person, I'll leave it at that.

The Bus Rider's Union gathered signatures outside of the Wilshire-Western Subway stop this morning, joining advocates around the country in building support for Federal Legislation H.R. 2746, which would allow transit agencies to spend more of their federal funds on day-to-day operations. Nationally, efforts were organized by Transit Riders for Public Transportation (TRPT) a national coalition focused on bringing "environmental justice and civil rights priorities to the upcoming federal surface transportation act."

Transit agencies are still reeling from declining tax revenues brought on by the recession, with fare hikes and service cuts on tap in dozens of cities. The stimulus bill has provided little help. An amendment to fund transit operations was shot down back in January.

In the Bay Area, advocates staged a mock funeral for bus service because there is a 15-30% service cut proposal being discussed by local bus carriers. In Chicago advocates held a rally and press conference in front of a local Congressional leader's office while West Harlem Environmental Action in New York sponsored a call drive to Congressmen throughout the Big Apple.

While the BRU and other groups are rallying in support of H.R. 2746, there's little chance the legislation will become law on its own. Instead, the bill is a "marker" that could eventually be incorporated into the House transportation bill currently being pushed by a bi-partisan coalition in the House Transportation Committee.

For more coverage of today's efforts across the country, check out this post by NYC Streetsblogs' Ben Fried. For more on the BRU's efforts, their press release is available after the jump.

$500 Billion Transit Bill Must Include Funds to Operate Transit Systems in Crisis

Transit Advocates Urge Congressional Leaders in a National Day of Action

On Wednesday, July 22, the Bus Riders Union will be part of a national day of action by the Transit Riders for Public Transportation national campaign to call on Congress to restore federal funding for transit operations that includes transit advocates, civil rights and environmental justice organizations throughout the country. Advocates including Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, New York and Portland will be calling on their congressional representatives.

The BRU will be at the northeast corner of Wilshire and Western leading a mass education drive highlighting the connection between the need for transit operation funding is related to the service cuts threatening millions of transit riders across the country including bus riders in Los Angeles. With giant banners, call booths and petitions the BRU will be encouraging scores of residents and bus riders to call the Southern California Congressmembers and President Obama to support a greater share for operations funding . The goal of the nationwide coordinated events is to influence the debate over the authorization of the $500 billion Federal Surface Transportation Authorization Act (FSTAA) slated to dedicate roughly 80% of the funding to highways, freeways and roads, while providing only 20% to mass transit. Advocates and transit riders will hold press conferences, rallies, phone-banking drives, and street theater encouraging thousands to call on their congressional representatives to dedicate at least 50 percent of all transit funds in the bill to operate transit systems in response to the crisis across the country.

Nationwide Transit Crisis

Across the United States, major cities and regions are facing massive cuts in transit services, raising fares and implementing regressive measures to make up for declining tax revenues and government support. These cuts hit the most vulnerable communities, predominately low-income and people of color, escalating already-existing economic burdens. The numbers are stark. New York Metro raised fares early this year, while Oakland's bus operator, AC Transit, announced proposed cuts in service ranging from 15-30% despite a fare increase that went into affect earlier this month. Los Angeles MTA has proposed fare increases for the next 30 years along with the elimination of 120,000 hours of bus service. Portland's TriMet implemented service cuts in May that eliminated weeknight transit service.

Supporting H.R. 2746 as First Immediate Action

As a major first step towards restoring federal support for transit operations, advocates will urge constituents and bus riders in various congressional districts to call on their Congressional Representatives to co-sponsor the H.R. 2746 (Rep. Carnahan - MO). The marker bill would allow transit agencies in urbanized areas of over 1 million to use up to 30% of their federal transit capital funds for operations, and grant even more flexibility for smaller urbanized areas. In contrast, the FSTA currently allows only 5% of federal transit capital funds to be used for operation in large urbanized areas.

New Opportunities to Improve the Environment

The U.S. must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% over the next twenty years if it is to meet the goal of achieving a 90% cut in emissions by 2050. Congress has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create first class transit systems and dramatically curb emissions with the passage the FSTAA. As a first step, the bill must preserve the integrity of our current transit systems and provide the funding to operate them at full capacity.

The TRPT campaign calls on the Obama Administration and Congress to break with the last two decades of favoring toxic highway expansion by making massive investments in a clean-fuel, world-class transportation systems that meet both the needs of transit riders and international emissions-reduction targets.

I never imagined it would take this long to pass the plan.

You may remember that Metro delayed a vote on the 2008 LRTP until this year so that it could take into account whether or not Measure R had passed when creating its project timeline.  Over eight months after the transit tax's passage, the Board is finally ready to vote on the LRTP.

Or are they?  At a "workshop" on the LRTP last month, then Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa moved to hold off passing the 2009 LRTP until July so that Metro could do more outreach.  Tt had been eighteen months since Imagine campaign had kicked off and the Mayor claimed he wanted to make Metro's vision clear to county residents before its passage.  If there's been any new outreach in the last six weeks, I'm not aware of it. Based on email conversations; neither is the Bus Rider's Union or the Southern California Transit Advocates.  So.CA.TA's  Dana Gabbard took a humorous look at the lack of any new outreach efforts on behalf of the LRTP.

...previous Plan preparation included convening stakeholder groups to provide input while the draft plan was being formulated and a round of public meetings in the region (held in the evenings) on the draft plan were conducted seeking input.

This current plan has had minimal to no substantive means by which to comment. A poorly publicized hearing held during a weekday in downtown L.A. falls far short of what used to be common practice.

That said, I should note the old way of doing things still mostly resulted in what you would expect they planned to do anyway, so I am not claiming it was paradise or some such. But at least the niceties were observed.

As best I can tell, with the exception of the addition of some clarifying language on bicycle and pedestrian funding; the current draft plan is no different than what was presented at last month's workshop.  So if they weren't going to change anything, or do more outreach, than what was the point of the delay?  I'm pretty sure they didn't just hold-up the process so that they could release the new bicycle and pedestrian funding numbers.

Image: AnsaldoBreda

For the fifth meeting in a row, the fate of Contract No. P2550, the one granting an exclusive right to manufacture light rail cars to the Italian company AnsaldoBreda, will certainly bring fireworks to the meeting.  Because Breda is years behind schedule on its current contract and the cars are too heavy for the tracks, most rail advocates want the contract for new cars to go out to bid.  However, AnsaldoBreda counters that it's Metro's fault the cars aren't built to their specifications and has amassed an army of union workers to press their case.  You see, AnsaldoBreda is promising to build a new rail car factory in L.A. County.  Even though the Board of Directors can't legally take that into account when awarding a contract, the presence of scores of union workers demanding that the Board "vote for jobs" is too big for any politician to feasibly ignore.

However, hope that the Board might cancel the exclusive arrangement and put future cars construction out to bid received new hope.  An article in today's Times reports that, Metro CEO Art Leahy sent a letter to the Metro Board asking them to not re-new the contract with AnsaldoBreda.  The LA County Federation of Labor sent a memorandum countering Leahy's, but it again stresses jobs creation, something that the Metro Board is not legally allowed to consider.

Other items of note include a discussion of whether or not Metro should support efforts to allow more hybrids and other "clean" vehicles to use HOV and HOT Lanes throughout California and whether or not to extend the January 2011 sunset for the hybrid access law.  There is now precedent for allowing "hybrid benefit" laws such as these to retire, as the City of Los Angeles voted last year to end its "free parking for hybrids" program.  You would think with the state's ongoing fiscal crisis that legislators would be looking for ways to raise money, not ways to hand out more discounts.

Speaking of HOT Lanes, there is also an agenda item on the consent calendar to set the "toll costs" for single passenger vehicles to access the coming "Express Lanes" on the I-10 and I-110.  The fees would be set at a minimum of twenty-five cents a mile and a maximum of $1.40.  Streetsblog will follow-up on this story a little later this week or sometime next week.

And speaking of user fees, the Board will also approve a hearing plan needed to set the fares for the Silver Line Bus Service during the September 24 Board of Directors meeting.  Does anyone want to bet on whether the hearing is held before or after a debate on AnsaldoBreda?

The Internet is abuzz with the news that Mayor Villaraigosa and his allies on the Metro Board are pushing for the acceleration of three transit projects that are partially funded with the now incoming Measure R funds.  LAist breaks down the new plans, outlined in a power point presentation for this Thursday's Measure R Committee Meeting at Metro Headquarters.

Those projects are moving opening dates of the regional connector in downtown from 2025 to 2018, the second Gold Line Eastside Extension to 2035 to 2018 and the Green Line to LAX from 2028 to 2017.

Meanwhile, the Gold Line Foothill Extension Authority is in "Why Not Us" mode, and is demanding that their favorite project, the Gold Line Extenstion to Azusa and beyond, be similarly accelerated.

But I have a different concern than what projects are getting accelerated and what project aren't: where is the money coming for this?  After all, we know that sales tax revenues are coming in lower than expected so it's not like Metro is overly flush with cash right now. 

Based on what is available in the power point, available on pages 28 and 29 for those following the presentation at home, it seems the plan is to borrow against future revenue.  The interest created by the debt would be partially offset by the savings Metro will see because of avoiding the increased costs of doing construction in the future.  At this point, there are no firm figures available to show us how much debt would be accrued or if the proposed acceleration would seriously damage Metro's ability to operate in the future; except that the accelerated project list means a $3.5 billion funding gap and a larger than anticipated operating defecit which would result in either fare increases or service cuts.  In fact, the debt created by accelerating just the Downtown Connector is over two and a quarter billion dollars over more debt.

Of course, many transit advocates think the fares are too low as it is, and want to see them go up so that the system, as a whole, can run better.  However, we have to recognize that it's not going to be an easy political decision for the board to raise fares in the short and long terms, especially after promising to use Measure R funds to keep fares low.

Bart Reed, executive director of the Transit Coalition, explains, "They haven't had the political courage to charge the right price for their service.  To operate the kind of system that we need, they should be charging $2.25 per ride.  Right now they are collecting an average of sixty-nine cents per boarding, and they can't run the kind of service they're talking about here on that amount."

All we have to evaluate these two proposals, accelerated schedule versus "strict" schedule, are these two sets of bullet points on the pros and cons of the acceleration.  According to Metro, if we accelerated the schedule here would be the results, besides having these three rail projects done earlier,

• We would have up to $3.5 billion funding gap
• We would incur additional debt and operating costs
• We would save on construction escalation costs
• We would require 2/3 vote of the Board to accelerate Measure R funds
  

Conversely, here is what shape following the plan as passed by the voters would have for Metro's fiscal state:

• Projects would be delivered in accordance with Measure R Expenditure Plan
• After operating deficit is resolved there would be no funding shortfall
• We would not save in construction escalation costs
• We would not incur additional debt and operating costs

I just returned from a trip to Moscow and noticed an interesting trend. Despite the economic slowdown, which Russia is also certainly experiencing, their public transportation is not only as efficient as it's always been, but - it keeps getting better and better.  Unlike in the United States, nobody is discussing service cuts!

Namely:

• Buses, trolleybuses, and streetcars run more frequently than ever before;
• Subway trains continue running every two minutes (every minute during rush-hours);
• Commuter/Regional electric trains run even more frequently than before (5-15 minute headways, including evenings!);
• New, state-of-the-art Express Commuter Rail routes have opened to various regions, including Airport
• Connector trains to all 4 (four) Moscow region's airports;
• New Subway lines continue to be built as we speak (3 extensions now under construction, that's in addition to the existing 180-mile subway network);
• No service cuts are on the horizon whatsoever!

Embarrassingly for Angelenos, Los Angeles city buses run less frequently than Moscow's regional trains! Whenever I was asked a question about our public transportation in LA, I was embarrassed to answer that - getting around without a car even within the city is practically impossible, let alone trying to travel outside LA! Needless to say, Russia is not the only country that can be proud of its public transportation and ability to get along without a car - something that cannot be said about Los Angeles!

Most cities across America - even with a developed mass transit system are still far from leveling with European transit systems. Even in cities such as Washington D.C. and Boston, intervals at certain times of the day are too long. American mass transit agencies have a strange "Fewer People thus Long Intervals" approach, leading to implementing 20-30 minute intervals at evening and night hours.

Red-color train - is a new, state-of-the-art Express airport connector, from the Sheremetyevo International Airport - to Moscow's center (directly, non-stop). By the way - it was very comfortable, with luxury seating, flat-screen TV's, large tinted windows, etc.

For instance, I witnessed in Moscow and Paris late-night and early-morning intervals are no more than 6 minutes (despite relatively low demand at this time of day). Now, compare that with America's major cities' subways, where evening or early-morning headways can range from 15 to 30 minutes. So, part
of the overhaul in our Metro-Rail and Bus service should be significantly improving frequencies at late-night and early-morning hours. We should have trains running at no more than 10-minutes intervals (not 20-30 minutes!). Generally, forcing riders to rely on Timetables for city buses & subway trains is pathetic!

So, we wonder whether U.S. is doing something totally wrong as far as our mass transit funding. Why all of our cities' mass transit systems keep struggling, even the developed ones? Why are we in America constantly hearing about transit cuts and fare increases,  when in other countries public transportation is booming?

Arguments like "Our transit money is diverted by our Governor due to budget crisis" are just pitiful excuses. The fact that other countries can provide wonderful mass transit service despite economic crisis is an indicator that things can be done if there's a will! No doubt, America's entire transit funding system needs serious examination.

The roots of severe under-funding of public transportation are in our own federal funding procedures, laws, and regulations. We need a complete overhaul in our whole system of funding Mass Transit, and not just for Los Angeles (although LA should be the first city in the U.S. for a complete overhaul, due to totally inadequate service); but in all major cities across the U.S.  Just as it is done in other countries, and in Russia in particular, the government should dedicate a MUCH higher sum of money to mass transit, and spend significantly LESS on highways! And not just the government, but local agencies such as Metro should stop focusing on roads & highways, but should truly invest in our public transportation!

Thankfully, for the first time ever since the auto industry took over America, the feds are considering a bill that would switch the funding priorities, from Highways to Mass Transit. This is a phenomenal development, albeit major obstacles ahead. But at least, there is an indicator that America is ready for a change!

More and more people realize that basing our transportation system on cars is doomed for failure!
Ultimately, funding of public transportation should come not just from Gas Tax and Sales Tax (or other
minor sources) - which hasn't worked well, but - Transit funding should be our Federal government's
priority funding, period! The reason that many U.S. cities' public transit systems are heading for severe cuts is because the government does not allocate nearly enough funding; it's that simple! The government should also make it a Federal law - for Transit money to be fully protected and to go directly to mass transit, without ever being diverted (by our California legislature, for example).

Finally, I find bailing-out the auto companies by our government to be a major mistake! Whereas, I do
sympathize the automakers for facing bankruptcies, it's obvious the demand for auto vehicles is falling. People are switching to public transportation with record numbers! So, when the government tries to pay to "save" the auto companies - is like almost forcing those companies to stay in business, even though there is obviously not much business going around!

View of the Russian country-side.

If the government desires to act like a "Big Daddy" to the failing business ventures, then why doesn't the government help everybody, not just the biggest moneymakers? Otherwise, it's clear discrimination, aimed towards "Car Propaganda" that has been dominating America for the last several decades. Rapidly falling demand for new and used vehicles comes shoulder-to-shoulder with rapidly increasing demand for Public Transportation, which again proves that people do not want to be forced to buy cars. People want improved public transportation nationwide!

Yes, stimulus money is badly needed; not to pay-off auto companies, but to re-build our mass transit networks. It's time that government realizes: transportation is about moving people, not cars.

As for the "Americans love their cars" slogan, I believe this to be an old cliché, propagated mostly by our
government and automakers - to force people buying cars! So, I would describe this "car love" being rather - car addiction; most of us are forced to be car-addicted due to the lack of reliable alternatives. Our goal is - to invest in, and provide, those reliable alternatives, thanks to which we won't have to be "in love" with our cars anymore! Providing options for people, the freedom to choose our method of commute is what needs to be done.

The economic slowdown is felt worldwide, especially in European countries, including Russia. But public
transportation systems worldwide are able to avoid service cuts; they sometimes raise their fares, but no service cuts are being forced whatsoever, helping to retain ridership and overall mobility! This should send a strong message to the United States - that economic downturn does not mean mass transit downturn. In fact, improving public transportation is the least the government should do to provide mobility and boost our economy. It can be done, but would require complete change in our government's mentality, in our entire Public Transportation funding politics, and switching priorities.

It's time for the U.S. to get rid of their ego and notorious "car culture" notion, and learn from other countries how to effectively provide mass transit for people. With our new Administration, there is a hope American cities will build reliable, efficient public transportation systems we can all be proud of!

The D.C. Metro accident that killed nine riders this week has renewed calls for rail safety upgrades and reminders that car travel remains far riskier than transit. But the crash is also shedding light on a problem that goes beyond Washington: tax shelter deals between banks and struggling transit agencies -- deals that were given a retroactive pass by Congress even though the IRS considers them illegal. 

The tax shelters at issue are called "sale in, lease out" deals, also known as SILOs. Starting in the 1980s, local transit agencies began selling rail cars and other equipment to Wall Street firms, which would then turn around and lease the goods back to the agencies.

Why would either side want to get into such arrangements? Sarah Lawsky, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School, has explained the situation in detail. But the short answer is that banks got tax write-offs for their newly leased transit equipment, while local agencies got a cash benefit for giving away tax deductions they could not use.

Congress outlawed SILOs in a 2004 tax bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). His original language was retroactive, Grassley's office said yesterday in a release, "but was watered down during conference negotiations to apply only prospectively."

That exception for existing SILO deals was added by Congress amid fierce lobbying by both Wall Street and urban transit agencies, as the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The Internal Revenue Service declared SILOs illegal in 2005, prompting some banks to accept lower payments in settlement deals with transit officials. However, Lawsky noted in an interview that some banks -- inspired by the congressional exemption -- have decided to try their luck in court with transit agencies.

"Some people want to settle and take 20 cents on the dollar," she said. "Some people want to say no ... we entered into these deals before the statute."

It remains to be seen whether the SILOs played a role in this week's D.C. Metro crash. But when federal safety inspectors asked the WMATA, which runs the D.C. Metro, in 2006 to replace its aging Rohr series rail cars -- the model that crumpled in this week's crash -- the agency declined.

WMATA was "constrained by" SILO leases from phasing out the Rohr cars, it said.

And that's just the beginning of the fallout from the tax deals, which have affected transit systems all across the country.

AIG served as a guarantor for many SILO deals, and its collapse late last year prompted several banks to seek "termination payments" from transit agencies that were otherwise up to date with their SILO leases. D.C.'s WMATA, in fact, was one of those transit networks fighting legal battles over AIG's unraveling.

A report released by Moody's Investors Service in March found that 17 of 25 major transit agencies embroiled in SILOs had lowered their risk by renegotiating with banks in the aftermath of the credit crisis. But that doesn't mean urban transit systems are all out of the woods -- Atlanta's MARTA transit agency was left with a $390 million exposure even after unwinding many of its SILOs, according to Moody's.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are still trying to convince the federal government to step in as a guarantor for the transit deals. After former President Bush declined to hear their appeals, Reps. Jim Moran (VA) and Chris Van Hollen (MD) inserted language into a January bailout-reform bill that would give Treasury backing to SILOs, but the bill was never taken up by the Senate.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), whose home-state transit agency faces $150 million in looming bills from SILOs, introduced a bill this week that would impose a 100 percent windfall-profits tax on any payments requested by banks. In a statement on his proposal, Menendez said:

(Editor's Note: This is the first in what will hopefully be a series of residents defending their community as the best for car-free living in Los Angeles.  Make your submissions to damien@streetsblog.org.  For more information on the series, visit yesterday's story.)

I am a resident of the Wilshire corridor (especially the stretch from Alvarado to Fairfax). I live, work and do most of my living along that famous boulevard. And do so easily sans car. Wilshire is lined with places to eat, nightspots, markets, medical offices, famous museums, etc. Apartment complexes cluster in the Miracle Mile, Wilshire Center, Westlake, etc.

Daytime you have frequent local public transit service from Metro (Line 20--downtown L.A. to Westwood Bl.) and Big Blue Bus (Line 2--Westwood Blvd. to downtown Santa Monica). Overnight line 20 serves the entire street (16 miles!) with owl service that operates on a 30 minute headway! Plus you have the Rapid 720 and during weekday peak the Super Express 920 for key linkages and long-distance travel. Western Ave. to downtown L.A. is also served by the Metro subway. Several neighborhoods (Koreatown, Miracle Mile, Pico/Union) have DASH community circulators. And via various connections you have access to the web of Rapid, busway and Metro Rail services that criss-cross the County plus Metrolink and Amtrak for regional access and beyond. It can be mindboggling when you understand how transit access along Wilshire works and how to make use of it.