Comments on: What Is “Mode-Neutral” Funding?

By: urban taxpayer

urban taxpayer — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:35:11 +0000

However, in fairness, buses and bicycles also use roads. Maybe only those roads which have regular bus routes or designated bike routes on them should be eligible for federal funding. That should spur more of both.

By: Angus Grieve-Smith

Angus Grieve-Smith — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:26:18 +0000

Small town America doesn't have a "mode choice". It is cars/roads or nothing. (Unless it is suggested that we go back to horse and carriage?)

That's a false dichotomy (trichotomy?). I grew up in a small town that was full of people who didn't drive. They walked to work and shopping, and took the bus to get to places out of town. This was in the '70s, but it's the way small towns were across the country before 1950, and it's the way it ought to be after 2050.

By: urban taxpayer

urban taxpayer — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:19:38 +0000

I believe that federal funds are for capital expenditures, not maintenance. The rural areas should be maintaining their systems out of local, state, and user fee sources. Reining in the federal funds should curtail expansion of these roads, which only encourages more sprawl at the expense of transit-oriented development. Certainly you don't think rural areas should be building roads they can't afford to maintain, saddling the rest of us with open-ended liabilities for development that is contrary to the public interest?

By: BPBanfie

BPBanfie — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:05:19 +0000

Mode neutral does not bode well for transportation funding for the 75% of the road system in the US that is rural. There are small towns all over the US that are unable to receive funding to repair and update their transportation systems (i.e. roads) under the current system. Then to say the funding will be distributed on a basis that encourages "mode choice" is insanity. Small town America doesn't have a "mode choice". It is cars/roads or nothing. (Unless it is suggested that we go back to horse and carriage?)

By: Angus Grieve-Smith

Angus Grieve-Smith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:18:29 +0000

Inspite of wishful thinking and auto-bashing, most Americans do not wish to live in a 2 bedroom flat in center city and ride the bus.

Do you have any public-opinion data to back that up, R?

By: Doc Barnett

Doc Barnett — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:21:47 +0000

The wishful thinking is that Americans can have everything they wish for. Finiteness of resources (land, oil, capital) has other ideas. Northern Jersey is the most advanced product of auto-driven development, and you don't find too many Americans (or even New Jerseyans) wishing for that.

By: R Latham

R Latham — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:32:23 +0000

Inspite of wishful thinking and auto-bashing, most Americans do not wish to live in a 2 bedroom flat in center city and ride the bus. Opportunities for economic growth are in small towns and the suburban ring of major cities. This will continue to favor use of the automobile and trucks for freight delivery.

By: Temp

Temp — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:43:34 +0000

You guys are biting on jargon pretty heavily. The current federal program has plenty of pots of money that are "mode neutral" - many date to the early 1990s. The key is what state and local leaders want to do with the money

By: ubrayj02

ubrayj02 — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:41:30 +0000

Whether it is "mode-nuetral" funding or not, a central problem in transportation planning is the reliance on the standards developed by professional transportation engineers: they are entirely automobile-based measures.

When it comes to a systematic system to measure the performance of our roadways, Transportation Engineers are really the only game in town.

A better regime of roadway performance measurement needs to be developed, tested, standardized, and taught to transportation engineers and city planners.

That better regime would likely include measures of: census demographics vs. pedestrian survey data; standardized liveability surveys (before and after) around various types of new roadway projects; comprehensive crash and incident statistics for roadways; survey of business income before and after roadway projects; and a few other things (like air and water quality and noise mesaurements).

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:27:59 +0000

very interesting concept, hope it starts rollling..

something I wrote recently

"Many politicians seem to think there is a need to ‘balance’ the demands of the ‘cycling lobby’ and the ‘motoring lobby’ - though few cyclists would complain if there was spending on cycle infrastructure that ‘balanced’ the money that will be provided for a new Forth crossing! "

http://cyclingedinburgh.info/2008/02/10/spokes-delivers-strong-letter-to-council

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:12:25 +0000

Mode neutral means since most people drive, other things are cut. It does not take into account that fact that most people drive due to past public investments in driving. A chicken and egg thing.

By: Not James Simpson

Not James Simpson — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:52:54 +0000

This is a guy who knows the value of other peoples money.
---------------------------------
James Simpson stood on the floor of Grand Central Terminal and handed a check for $1.3 billion to Governor Spitzer and Lee Sander so they could build the Second Avenue Subway. This is a guy who knows multimodalism and values transit.

By: vnm

vnm — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:32:19 +0000

"mode neutral" sounds like a politically palatable way to tell the American people that they need to end their car-only ways of thinking.

Last November, James Simpson stood on the floor of Grand Central Terminal and handed a check for $1.3 billion to Governor Spitzer and Lee Sander so they could build the Second Avenue Subway. This is a guy who knows multimodalism and values transit.

By: mjr

mjr — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:31:40 +0000

The STC report highlights the need to build and maintain citizen pressure on national elected officials to get transportation right. At the Rudin Center's Presidential Candidate Forum (with respected campaign reps but alas, no candidates), it was less than crystal-clear that all the Democratic candidates had gotten the point of the report. Clinton's rep denounced Congestion Pricing as a Bush-driven ruse, while Obama's soft-pedaled the difference between the Commission's and Secretary Peters' position. Neither position reflects a deep understanding of the issues; here, as in planning generally, the devil is in the details.

By: Fix DC First

Fix DC First — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:13:17 +0000

Back in the early 1990's the first ISTEA had a whole set of performance goals and objective criteria for measuring the cost and benefits of transportation projects --- similar in effect to mode neutrality. As soon as it became clear what this meant to pork as usual a bipartisan army in congress stripped them out. Burwell was around for that.

By: Channeling The Kunstler

Channeling The Kunstler — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:05:32 +0000

Nobody in Washington is willing to tell it to Americans straight: the days of cheap and easy motoring are over. Unless the federal government radically changes is funding priorities to effect better transit options and more compact communities, then the share of household income (and time) devoted to transportation is going to skyrocket.