Streetsblog Los Angeles

President Obama just finished his speech at George Washington University. He drew a sharp line between the Republican budget proposal and his own vision for reducing the deficit while preserving the social safety net.

The most important thing the president did for transportation in his speech is steer the scrutiny away from the 12 percent of the federal budget that pays for “education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean.” If we’re really going to deal with the deficit, he said, we’re going to need to deal with the other 88 percent.

Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans’ benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20 percent. What’s left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else.

The last few rounds of spending cuts, during which transportation advocates have begged and prayed and hidden their eyes from the carnage, have tried to extract a whole budget’s worth of overspending from just a few small programs. If the president can tackle the bigger issue and leave some of those programs alone, it’ll be a huge relief to transportation advocates, transit agencies, and DOTs.
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With the FY2011 budget finally settled, it’s time for Washington to start fighting over 2012. President Obama released his 2012 budget proposal in February. The Republicans introduced theirs last week. And the House Democrats have just released theirs [PDF].

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Photo: Reuters

Meanwhile, President Obama is giving a speech in just a few hours on his plan to reduce the deficit. He’s not coordinating with the House Dems on this, though – it appears he’s relying more on the bipartisan “gang of six” senators who are crafting an agenda based on the recommendations of the deficit commission.

The Democrats’ budget proposal, hot off the presses, seeks to bring the economy into “primary balance” (which doesn’t count interest payments on the debt) by 2018, three years later than the Republican plan. It reduces the deficit by $1.2 trillion over ten years and promises to end tax breaks for oil companies.

Like Obama’s budget proposal and the deficit commission plan, the Democrats’ agenda would move transportation spending over to the “mandatory” column.

Our budget supports bipartisan cooperation to identify a funding source to build out and maintain our highway and transit infrastructure. It also supports deficit-neutral capitalization of an infrastructure bank to provide funding for a variety of needs, including transportation, waterways, clean energy infrastructure, and school buildings. Where the Republican budget cuts about $318 billion in transportation funding that benefits our families, businesses, and communities, the Democratic budget sets a path for a surface transportation reauthorization and new investments.

The detailed budget [PDF] allows for $93 billion in new budget authority for transportation next year, growing to $101 billion in 2021.

We’ll be watching Obama’s speech at 1:35 to see whether he supports the House Democrats or goes off on his own to create a third path to deficit reduction.

Two Sacramento lawmakers have introduced legislation to improve access to transit. Maybe they ride Sacramento's efficient light rail system pictured above. Photo:Free Foto.com

(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 some legislation moving in Sacramento.  Yesterday Wiggins gave an overview of the federal picture. – DN)

Earlier this year, the State of California reenacted the state fuel tax which is viewed by T4A partners as a positive development. This maintains transit funds at $330 million – meaning that there have been no more cuts proposed this year; however, if the state budget process fails i.e. the revenue mechanisms/taxes proposed by Governor Brown are not enacted then cuts to state transit funds could once again be on the table

Transportation for America doesn’t take positions on state and local issues; however, partners such as Transform are taking a leadership role on state transit issues with the goal of making California’s public transportation networks more expansive and efficient.

There are several bills being proposed this year in the state legislature but two that have the possibility of increasing ridership, access to transit, and overall farebox recovery. 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…

A powwow between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, President Obama, and House Speaker John Boehner last night failed to yield a compromise that would put a budget in place before the government shuts down at midnight tonight. The failure of yet another attempt to negotiate makes a government shutdown all but inevitable.

A government shutdown could empty out the D.C. metro system. Photo: Examiner

Just a month ago, AASHTO sounded the warning that the transportation sector could lose up to $100 million a day in case of a shutdown. However, Congress’s extension of SAFETEA-LU through the end of the fiscal year (September 30) has put their minds at ease. Now, AASHTO spokesperson Tony Dorsey says spending for federal highway programs will continue unabated, despite a shutdown. “At this point,” Dorsey said, “we’re not anticipating any issues.” Still, he said, they’re hoping that “should there be a shutdown, it will be a very, very short one.”

But that’s not the whole story. According to a detailed DOT shutdown plan, the vast majority of the Federal Transit Administration would shut down, keeping only 54 out of 575 positions working. Already-awarded stimulus grants would continue to receive oversight and the Lower Manhattan Recovery Office would continue to function. The $270 million that the FTA normally remits to transit agencies every week would cease.

Jeff Rosenberg, government affairs director for the Amalgamated Transit Union, says the SAFETEA-LU extension only continues government’s authority to pay for transportation programs. But “if the FTA isn’t authorized to open the door,” he says, those payments will cease. That could be especially damaging for smaller metros that receive operating assistance, not just capital funds, from the feds. However, he’s hopeful that a potential shutdown would only last a couple of days and would just be “a blip on the screen.”

What else can you expect to happen if the government does shut down as of midnight tonight?

• At least 800,000 federal employees would be furloughed immediately. That would cause a massive drop in transit ridership, especially here in D.C., where Metro is predicting a five to 20 percent drop in case of a shutdown. Michael Perkins of Greater Greater Washington estimates that this would result in a loss for Metro of a quarter million dollars a day.
• Amtrak’s federal subsidies – up in the air for months now anyway as Congress debates whether to eliminate them, reduce them, or maintain them – will stop. However, Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman recently assured employees that the rail operator can keep going on ticket revenue alone in the short term.
• The Federal Highway Administration will stay open, with no positions furloughed, according to the DOT shutdown plan. The FHWA is funded with contract authority and has enough funds available to operate in that way for about a month.

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USDOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari kicked off the Transportation Equity Network’s “One Nation, Indivisible” conference yesterday with a call to think long-term. By 2050, he said, we can expect the U.S. population to grow by 100 million people, and nearly all of them will live in large urban centers. Problems like crumbling infrastructure, inadequate transit systems, grinding traffic and pollution will be much worse then if we don’t start acting today.

“Are we doing right by the next generation?” Porcari asked. “We know we’re not.”

Echoing President Obama’s “winning the future” rhetoric, Porcari framed the administration’s push for a six-year, $550 billion transportation bill as a potential watershed that can reform a transportation system which has become increasingly burdensome for lower income Americans. “If you make between $20,000 and $50,000 a year,” he said, “odds are that transportation is your number one household expense, higher than housing.”

With the GOP-controlled House making noise about a much smaller reauthorization bill than the one Obama has proposed, better days for affordable transportation are not here yet, nor are they necessarily around the corner. Transit agencies have already been through a couple of years of widespread service cuts and fare increases. The brunt of these cuts have been felt by people of color — who make up at least 60 percent of public transit ridership.

So in addition to not doing right by the next generation, our current policies are not doing right by today’s generation.

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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood played defense – and dodgeball – this morning as members of the Senate Budget Committee grilled him on how he proposed to pay for the administration’s new transportation agenda.

Secretary Ray LaHood indicates how many details he’s going to give Congress on how to fund the transportation budget proposal (Photo: AP)

On Valentine’s Day, the Obama administration released its budget proposal for next year. It included significant cuts to some programs, like heating assistance for the poor, and modest increases in others, like education and energy. But the president saved his biggest doozy for transportation – $556 billion over six years, about twice the current spending levels.

LaHood immediately grew impatient with the inevitable question – “How are you suggesting we pay for this?” Right away, he threw that hot potato back to Congress, saying it was up to the legislative branch to figure it out.

He could have started that process this morning, when he appeared before the Senate Budget Committee, but he again seemed impatient with the very question. (And this was the Budget Committee, after all – of course their primary concern is going to be the financial piece.)

The Senate, remember, is still controlled by Democrats, so he had an easier time there than he’ll have in the House. But everyone in Washington is focused on reining in deficit spending, although they may differ on how and how much.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said he was “flabbergasted” by the size of the president’s budget request – a 62 percent increase for the USDOT “at a time when all of us know we’ve got to contain spending and do something about the surging debt we’ve got.”

Indeed, LaHood’s persistent refusal to engage on the funding question – at a time when Congress is obsessively trying to cut spending – is beginning to sound tone-deaf. Every time anyone presses him for specifics on how to make this plan work, he returns to soundbites about how bold the plan is.

Well sure, Mr. Secretary, we like bold, but we like possible even more.

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Don’t be fooled by the high-pitched rhetoric in Washington. The vast majority of Americans are united, at least when it comes to the topic of transportation.

About 79 percent of Americans think the United States needs to modernize its transportation system in order to remain the world's top economic superpower. Photo: The Daily Green

That’s the conclusion of the Rockefeller Foundation poll released earlier this week. A bipartisan polling team questioned 1,000 American voters nationwide about their attitudes toward the nation’s roads, bridges and transit systems. They found individuals from every party affiliation support improvements in transportation and a greater focus on outcomes.

Survey results showed that, when it comes to transportation, 71 percent of voters think political leaders should seek common ground, rather than “hold fast to their opinions” — a position favored by just 19 percent of those surveyed.

“Voters’ message was this is something that we just need to get done,” said Jay Campbell of Hart Research Associates which, along with Public Opinion Strategies, performed the survey for the Rockefeller Foundation.

Transportation, more than any other issue, was the area in which voters want to see cooperative problem solving from the nation’s decision makers, the poll showed.

“There’s a surprising amount of partisan agreement on this issue,” said Campbell. “Everyone uses transportation. Everyone thinks it’s important to make it better than it is.”

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President Obama is expected to make a strong push for infrastructure spending during the State of the Union address tonight. Ahead of the address, the Transportation Equity Network organized its members and supporters to write to President Obama, telling their personal stories of why transit funding is crucial to their communities. In all, TEN will deliver 1,000 personal letters to the President asking him to support transit investments. A few have already been sent.

Here’s a sampling:

Lisa T. in St. Louis wrote:

As a high school teacher, I see how our less-than-adequate public transportation system impacts low-income families who do not have dependable personal transportation. Students and families who do not have cars are not able to participate in parent conferences, open house events, and extracurricular activities.

Jan H. of Montana wrote the president about how her hometown has been changed by car culture:

When I was a girl, there were two trains a day: east to Chicago and west to Spokane. Now, there are nothing but freeways clogged with big trucks.

Ann E. in Washington State told the president about the importance of transit accessibility:

I use an electric scooter to get around because treatment for bone cancer has limited my range for walking. Last fall, I went to visit my daughter who lives in Philadelphia. We were able to board the outbound trains to the suburbs using a special ramp but on our return trip we found that the station didn’t have the necessary ramps.

Please include funding in your 2012 budget to make public transportation practical for all who wish to use it.

John C. of Oakland, CA, wrote that transit service is an economic lifeline for working people:

In Oakland, we want expansion of mass transit to include eco passes to provide free mass transit for junior and high school students.

Nancy H. from Wisconsin, wrote about the transit issues in her area:

Funding for transit is a necessity where I live in Racine, WI, located between Milwaukee and Chicago. Anyone without a car must deal with limited bus routes that don’t reach many of the places in the county where jobs are located. Getting from Racine to neighboring communities by bus is impossible in most cases.

For the Racine community to attract new businesses there must be dependable, networked transportation.

Robert Kelly, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union’s Local 308 in Chicago, wrote the president about how transit spurs job growth:

With a staggering set of issues before you, it is easy to understand that some domestic issues might not make the top of your priority list when you have to deal with crisis after crisis. A renewed federal commitment to urban mass transit is an issue that absolutely affects the lives of millions of Americans every single day, the environment and your Administration’s commitment to grow jobs.

Mary J. in St. Louis wrote about her years without access to transportation:

Many years ago I lived in a rural area and had no ready access to a car. My mother and I would “flag down” a Greyhound bus on a nearby road to get to town for groceries, to attend church, and to visit family. Today, living in suburbia, I have a car, but no buses come near my house.

In Los Angeles, Pariss B. wrote about the importance of the bus system:

Bus operations are important to me because I am a citizen who wants things to get better. Bus fares are high and things are only getting rougher. Times are hard. It’s time for a change.

Maybe, once he reads them, Obama should forward these letters on to House Republicans, who are expected to be a tough audience for his pitch to increase investment to “outbuild” other nations.

At the federal level, we’re nearly flat out of transportation money and spending most of what’s left to stimulate highway construction jobs. It’s a double whammy that could present a bleak future for federally-funded transportation projects.

Photo credit: M.V. Jantzen

A new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP) challenges the country to envision a national transportation policy based on clear-cut, objective long-term criteria. With tight federal budgets and the end of stimulus money, NTPP says this is the perfect time to revisit the direction of transportation policy and spending.

Notably, the report is authored by Martin Wachs of the RAND Corporation and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a top economist in the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under both Bushes and a policy advisor for the 2008 McCain-Palin campaign. It’s encouraging to see a Republican stalwart coming under an explicitly bipartisan umbrella to find common ground on infrastructure spending.

The report’s main recommendations are three-fold:

• Balance the selection of quick, easy “shovel ready” projects with those producing long-term economic benefits.
• Revise transportation policies to focus on economic growth and sustainable job creation.
• Stop borrowing money to finance transportation spending and short-term job creation.

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