Comments on: STAA Tuned: Transpo Bill Leaves Funding Question Hanging http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/06/23/staa-tuned-transpo-bill-leaves-funding-question-hanging/ Covering the New York City Streets Renaissance Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:01:47 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 hourly 1 By: Shemp http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/06/23/staa-tuned-transpo-bill-leaves-funding-question-hanging/comment-page-1/#comment-72391 Shemp Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:40:19 +0000 http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=6771#comment-72391 This "everything's good minus funding" account of the bill is not very analytical. Several potential problems with the "good" bullets above: The bill links the Office of Intermodalism to minor funding programs, so could represent institutionalizing the bike/ped funding ghetto treatment practiced by most states. Empowering metropolitan planning organizations is a fantasy of Congresspeople and beltway advocates with little experience of how transportation politics plays out in real life in the 50 states. The metropolitan planning process is bullshit in 99% of metro areas and fixing every case with blanket legislation isn't going to work. "Depoliticizing" huge funding decisions is an extension of this fantasy. As far as I can tell, the infrastructure banks will mainly offer credit, not hard cash, which won't be that useful for states that already do a lot of bonding. This "everything's good minus funding" account of the bill is not very analytical.

Several potential problems with the "good" bullets above:

The bill links the Office of Intermodalism to minor funding programs, so could represent institutionalizing the bike/ped funding ghetto treatment practiced by most states.

Empowering metropolitan planning organizations is a fantasy of Congresspeople and beltway advocates with little experience of how transportation politics plays out in real life in the 50 states. The metropolitan planning process is bullshit in 99% of metro areas and fixing every case with blanket legislation isn't going to work.

"Depoliticizing" huge funding decisions is an extension of this fantasy. As far as I can tell, the infrastructure banks will mainly offer credit, not hard cash, which won't be that useful for states that already do a lot of bonding.

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