Streetsblog Los Angeles

Source: Donald Shoup

If you drive to work, you can get a $230 monthly parking benefit, subsidized by the federal government and paid through your employer. If you take transit, right now you can get up to $230 per month, but the cap may revert to $120 when the current transit benefit law expires this fall. And if you ride a bike? If your employer can even figure out how the bike benefit works, you get twenty bucks. Don’t spend that all in one place, kiddo. (Full disclosure: even Streetsblog hasn’t worked through the confusing bureaucracy enough to give its bike-commuting staff this benefit.)

Rep. Earl Blumenauer announces the introduction of the Commuter Relief Act outside a metro station. Photo: Meghan Cahill/League of American Bicyclists

The privileged position of cars in the employer-benefits paradigm could soon change. As Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) said today, “We need to take away subsidies that incentivize people to do just the opposite of what we ought to be doing.” As a congressman representing the second most congested part of the country, Moran said it was “stunning” that the tax code “is designed to subsidize congestion.”

Moran is a co-sponsor of Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-OR) Commuter Relief Act, introduced today as a way to bring some equity to different transportation modes. Why should drivers get up to $230 a month to foster oil dependency, greenhouse gas emissions, and congestion when everyone else gets so much less?

Blumenauer’s proposal contains a menu of options that lawmakers can choose among – or they can choose all of them. They are:

• Transit equity: sets the cap for all transportation benefits at $200 a month – parking and transit.
• Self-employed extension of transportation benefits: gives self-employed workers transit benefits for their work travel.
• Parking cash-out: requires employers who offer a parking benefit to also offer the option to take cash instead (reducing the incentive to drive).
• Van-pool credit: creates a 10 percent tax credit for spending on vanpool services.
• Bike benefit: raises the cap for the bike benefit from $20 to $40 and makes the procedures easier for employers. It also allows commuters to combine the bike benefit with transit or parking benefits, which they’re now not allowed to do.

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“How many people are stuck in traffic on their way to ride a stationary bike in a health club?”

Congressman Earl Blumenauer tells Bike Summit attendees to change the world "one bike at a time." Photo by Tanya Snyder.

If you’ve never heard this line before, you’ve never been in a room with Congressman Earl Blumenauer.

It’s the Oregon Democrat’s signature line. He opened his speech at the National Bike Summit by inviting participants to say it with him. They all know it by heart.

Blumenauer encouraged them to “change the world, one bike at a time.” He said that it’s important that bike activists come to Washington to talk to members of Congress, but the Capitol Hill debates on taxing and spending are “beside the point.” It’s about on-street bike parking in Portland and bike share in D.C. “It’s about our ability to do things differently,” he said.

He acknowledged that “this is the first year we’re here without uber-cyclist Jim Oberstar,” the former chair of the House Transportation Committee, ousted in the last election. Oberstar is still a patron saint of the Bike Summit.

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Last week, hundreds of bike advocates descended on Washington D.C. for the tenth annual National Bike Summit -- the largest one yet. Hosted by the League of American Bicyclists, the summit is always a great opportunity for advocates to share ideas and make the case for cycling on Capitol Hill. This year attendees encouraged their senators and representatives to sign on to several key pieces of legislation, including the Active Community Transportation Act, Safe Routes to School Act, and the Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act.

Streetfilms attended the summit and had the chance to talk to several participants. Check out this wrap-up for insight into some of the big bicycle initiatives happening around the country. You'll hear from conference host Andy Clarke, Representative Earl Blumenauer, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, the FTA's Peter Rogoff, and more.  L.A. is represented in the video by Allison Mannos, who discussed City of Lights at a panel during the event.

Addressing a packed house in Washington last night, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, posed a Zen-like ‘universalist cyclist question’.

(Photo: Cities for Cycling)

"How many people, right now," he asked, "are stuck in traffic on their way to ride a stationary bike in a health club?"

The quip got a big laugh. But at yesterday’s launch of Cities for Cycling,
a new project spearheaded by the National Association of City
Transportation Officials (NACTO), Blumenauer urged fellow cyclists to
consider their cause "serious business."

The mission of C4C,
as outlined by New York City Transportation Commissioner and NACTO
President Janette Sadik-Khan, is to collect and share best practices
for the introduction of local bike lanes and other cycling
infrastructure — the type of strategies that have succeeded in cities
but not yet been added to the Federal Highway Administration’s traffic
control manual, also known as the MUTCD.

"Some
of the most celebrated and popular [bike] improvements are not even in
the national guidelines," Sadik-Khan explained, adding that C4C
ultimately aims to help develop "a new MUTCD, designed for cities, not
highways."

The C4C kickoff,
held in the shadow of the Capitol and sponsored by the Brookings
Institution, was imbued with a sense of hope for future federal and
local policies to encourage bicycling expansion. The Obama
administration had a strong presence in the room, including Federal
Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff, befitting its public push for more sustainable community development.

Still,
Blumenauer and Sadik-Khan emphasized that bolstering the uneven federal
commitment to bicycling, and its urban benefits in particular, would
require hard work and political organizing on the part of bike
advocates.

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On the issue of clean transportation, from transit to bike paths to water quality, few members of Congress are as knowledgeable or active as Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). Chairman of the Congressional Bicycle Caucus and founder of the new Livable Communities Task Force, the Portland lawmaker is on the front lines of Washington's biggest infrastructure debates. Streetsblog Capitol Hill spoke with him yesterday about the prospects for transportation in the coming jobs bill, which he has said could be paid for in part with Wall Street bailout money. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) (Photo: CAP via Flickr)

SCH: There is a growing focus on Capitol Hill on new infrastructure investments as part of a jobs bill that moves separately from the six-year transportation bill. What are your thoughts on the merits of moving on new spending versus a broader long-term bill?

EB: There is a terrific and very important complementary opportunity. Make no mistake, we need to have a six-year blueprint for how we rebuild and renew America for transportation. We've got a lot of work that has been done for last two-and-a-half years by the transportation committee; they're in the home stretch. Literally, in a month, they could have a finalized version [of a six-year federal bill] and work it through with the administration, send it over to the Senate.

That's not to say we shouldn't be looking for opportunties to put people to work tomorrow, and the two are not by any stretch of the imagination mutually exclusive. We have so many transit agencies with deferred maintenance [needs], so many bridges that are functionally obsolete or dangerous.

I recently finished a conversation with Gov. [Ed] Rendell [D-PA], and the opportunities in his state are amazing. Lieutenant Gov. Dick Ravitch in New York, he's got literally billions of dollars of things that need to be done. I'd be prepared to argue that we should go ahead with a big, comprehensive transportation bill, but there's no reason we cannot put money out the door, literally within weeks, that can put tens of thousands of people to work in virtually every state in the union within a matter of months. Done right, the [two bills] will complement each other.

SCH:

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"The tide is turning," Transportation Alternatives Paul White exclaims towards the end of this most recent Streetfilm, "In fact, it’s already turned."

White is celebrating the good work underway in New York City during a tour of the city’s bike facilities with the head of the Congressional Bike Caucus, Portland’s Earl Blumenauer.  To their credit, the tour wasn’t just a review of NYCDOT’s greatest hits; but also included a ride on the 6th Ave. bike lane, which might be the most dangerous one in North America.

However, the tone of the video is triumphal. Blumenauer himself notes that change is in the air across the country.  In addition to New York and Portland, he ticks off a list of cities who’s activists are paving the way towards sustainability.  Chicago.  Washington, D.C. Los Angeles.  Better biking isn’t just for college towns anymore.

The Streetfilm ends with a call for action.  At some point Congress and President Obama are going to agree to a transportation funding and policy bill.  Even though Congress is hearing more and more from Livable Streets advocates, it’s going to be incumbent on all of us to give them the cover to buck the auto industry when the time comes.  Hopefully someday soon a visit from Blumenauer won’t be cause for celebration because every city will have its own contingent of bike-friendly Congressmen.

(editor’s note: Streetfilms has undergone a re-design and looks pretty nice.  If you haven’t been over there in some time, make sure to check it out at.)

Will vs. Blumenauer: Battle of the bowties.

Just when you thought George Will’s pouty, ill-informed tirade against new Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was going to stand unchallenged, here comes Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).

Blumenauer, co-chief of the Congressional Bike Caucus and a Streetfilms favorite,
released a statement this morning that dares the conservative pundit to
come to Portland for a debate on sustainable urban planning and
transportation policy.

The gauntlet was first thrown via Twitter, where Blumenauer posted: "it’s LaHood that gets it. George Will doesn’t …" before following up with a sarcastic reference to the love of bowties that both men share.

So
is Will prepared to answer the call and head northwest? We’ve got a
call in to Newsweek’s spokeswoman, and will keep you posted on any
response we receive.

Meanwhile, you can read Blumenauer’s full statement to Will after the jump.

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