Streetsblog New York City

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and his Finance Committee have been looking high and low for a $12 billion patch to fund the transportation reauthorization bill that passed the Senate EPW Committee a few weeks ago. According to Politico’s transportation reporters, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch, has already rejected several of Baucus’s ideas.

But the question is not only, “How will we get the money?” It’s also, “How much money do we need?” The dollar amount the Senate is seeking could lavish more money than necessary on roads while leaving transit out in the cold.

The EPW Committee wants to hold transportation spending at current levels (plus inflation), which they estimate at $109 billion over two years. Receipts into the Highway Trust Fund (from gas taxes and other vehicle fees) aren’t expected to be sufficient to pay that bill. The Congressional Budget Office told the committee that the HTF is $12 billion short of the amount needed to fully fund the bill. That amount is destined just for highways, based on projections that the Mass Transit Account will be solvent through the end of 2013 – in fact, ending that year with a $1.5 billion balance.

But last month, the two top members of the Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over transit, asked FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff for confirmation of those numbers [PDF]. Rogoff replied that he, in fact, found another set of numbers to be more accurate [PDF].

Read more…

For the last two days, transit experts from around the country have been hunkered down in Detroit to devote their collective expertise to making the Motor City a better city for transit.

The Federal Transit Administration convened the panel, which included current and former transit agency leaders from Salt lake City, Denver, Portland, Atlanta and Dallas. The meeting was to focus on the planned Woodward Avenue light rail project, which received a $25 million TIGER grant, to envision a “bright future” for Detroit transit. Bickering between private donors and public officials over the design of the rail line (curb-running versus center-running trains) and conflict between the primary transit providers in Detroit have created problems for the project, and were likely a reason the feds decided to step in with some assistance from above.

Of course, the leaders that came together to advise Detroit come from very different cities with their own sets of issues, but none with the complex set of challenges besetting Detroit: an unemployment rate triple the national average, the highest foreclosure rate in the country, more than a quarter of its property vacant, a 25 percent drop in population over the past decade, and most of the region’s jobs well outside the city limits, with no public transportation to get there. Can a city like Portland really be of any help?

“Given the current technical capacity, as well as the lack of experience, as well as the extraordinary needs in Detroit, we wanted to treat this project differently, and sort of attack the problems collectively, rather than just wait to see if the city can attack them themselves,” FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff told Streetsblog.

Dan Lijana, a spokesperson for Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, said that although Detroit’s transit system will undoubtedly look very different from the other cities’ systems, there were some concrete things they wanted to learn from others’ experience: how to space transit stops, how to design the routes, and, especially, how to foster economic development along the corridor.

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.

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.

Read more…

Later today, Governor Chris Christie is expected to announce that he’s shutting down construction of the ARC tunnel for good, closing off the potential for transit-based growth in northern New Jersey for the foreseeable future. In a dark day for smart planning and development, the project to double NJ Transit’s capacity to Manhattan has become a casualty of cheap-gas-at-all-costs populism.

New Jersey’s loss will be somebody else’s gain: $3 billion in Federal Transit Administration funding will shift from ARC to other projects. Already, elected officials are making their case to the feds. In a letter sent to U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood a few days ago, New York City Council transportation chair Jimmy Vacca said he’d be sad to see ARC go, but…

…if New Jersey is intent on abandoning this worthy project, it is imperative that the $3 billion in federal funds available be used to fund the many other vital transportation projects on queue in the New York region, such as the long overdue Second Avenue Subway, the 7 train extension, and the Long Island Rail Road East Side Access project. All are at risk of not being completed due to lack of funding.

…the MTA’s five-year, $26 billion capital program is currently funded only through the second year, with no guarantee that New York State will fund the remaining three years. This capital program funds station rehabilitations, new communication signals and tracks, and routine replacement of buses and subway cars… If the ARC Tunnel is canceled, then the Federal Government’s contribution should stay within the Greater New York Metropolitan Region and help stabilize the MTA’s finances.

It will probably be rather difficult to convince the FTA to put more money into the MTA capital program. The feds are already the primary funder of the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access, and this June FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff promised Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd that “not a single penny” more from the New Starts program would go toward the escalating costs of those mega-projects. New Starts is the same pot of money that would have funded ARC.

However, $3 billion is a lot of money — nearly a billion more dollars than LaHood’s DOT has dispensed in two rounds of TIGER grants. Surely some of it should go toward the MTA, which provides about a third of all transit trips in the United States. So indulge in the following scenario…

Read more…

The largest federal transit investment in American history is on its deathbed, reports Andrea Bernstein at Transportation Nation. Three sources have told Bernstein that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is ready to pull the plug on the plan to double rail capacity under the Hudson River this week, though Christie denies his mind is made up.

We’ve already outlined just how important this project is to the future of New Jersey and how shortsighted this decision would be for the Christie administration, so with this devastating news, the only thing we can do is look forward.

First, the predictable stuff: If ARC dies, New Jersey will keep its $2.7 billion share of project funds, which Christie is expected to use to patch up the state’s Transportation Trust Fund for a couple of years so that he doesn’t have to raise the gas tax to pay for the state’s roads. The Port Authority will recoup its $3 billion, some of which will end up back in New Jersey and some in New York. The authority’s capital plan currently calls for no new pieces of infrastructure, so it’s possible this money will fund necessary repairs on existing bridges and tunnels.

The wildcard is where the Federal Transit Administration’s $3 billion winds up. When New York City activists defeated the Westway highway project 25 years ago, House Speaker Tip O’Neill managed to capture a large share of its funding for Boston’s Big Dig. The $350 million that US DOT offered New York to help implement congestion pricing in 2008 almost ended up paying for a Chicago BRT system, though Chicago ultimately balked as well.

Who will get the billions of dollars that Christie is on the verge of passing up? Place your bets — or vent your anger — in the comments.

Aging infrastructure across the country has become an enormous safety risk. It’s also becoming an economic hazard.

Last year, the Federal Transit Administration announced that the seven largest rail transit systems had a backlog of $50 billion in maintenance needs to bring them into a state of good repair. In June, the agency determined that nationwide, the backlog is nearly $78 billion.

Though these needed repair and maintenance projects may be less impressive to the public than major expansions, they are key to increasing ridership and decreasing costs.

Last week, FTA Deputy Administrator Therese McMillan told the North America Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum that the agency is linking good transit maintenance to its livability initiatives. Keeping systems in good repair, she said, is the foundation of safe, reliable rail service that can help draw new residents to vacated areas.

“When we’re looking at the opportunities for in-fill, particularly in our major urban areas, where we can take advantage of the infrastructure we already have, this is where State of Good Repair becomes a very key piece of a livability initiative,” McMillan said. “So it’s not just about building the new stuff into greenfield. It’s about investing and making transit a real value-added as part of these strategic re-investments in communities.”

Read more…

Two weekends ago, construction on New Jersey’s most important transit project was called to a temporary stop by Governor Chris Christie. He declared a thirty-day review period for the ARC tunnel project, which would build a new rail tunnel below the Hudson and double commuter rail capacity from New Jersey. Many worry the review is just a prelude to axing the $8.7 billion project altogether and using the money saved to patch up New Jersey’s Transportation Trust Fund for a couple of years.

Advocates are now mobilizing to save ARC. People who live, work, or attend school in New Jersey can send a letter to the Christie administration through the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s “We Need ARC” petition.

Currently, only a single pair of century-old tunnels carry New Jersey Transit trains into Penn Station, and with NJ Transit ridership more than quadrupling since the 1980s, those tunnels are at capacity. “Every two minutes, a train enters Midtown Manhattan from New Jersey,” said Juliette Michaelson of the Regional Plan Association. “That capacity cannot increase.”

Without a new tunnel, commuter rail in New Jersey simply cannot expand. If ARC is built, however, it would be expected to carry 100,000 more commuters into Midtown, more than doubling capacity. Estimates suggest 22,000 cars would be taken off the road as a result. “It’s a game-changer,” said Michaelson.

Christie’s decision to halt all work on the project for thirty days has put the project in grave peril.

Read more…

Americans who ride trains and buses are suffering the effects of a huge maintenance backlog, according to a new study by the Federal Transit Administration [PDF]. It would take a down payment of $77.7 billion to bring the nation's transit systems up to a state of good repair and another $14.4 billion per year, on average, to keep transit running smoothly, safely, and comfortably for riders. 

The National State of Good Repair Assessment Study is a follow-up to a similar report issued last year, which catalogued the needs of the country's seven largest rail systems. This year's look widens the lens to include small and medium sized transit operators, including rural systems, and buses as well as trains. 

America's bus system is in particularly bad condition, according to the FTA. Nine percent of all assets received the lowest rating, poor, and another 32 percent were deemed marginal. While rail is in a slightly better condition -- nine percent of assets are poor, but only 17 percent are marginal -- the costs of bringing rail to a state of good repair are far higher. It'll take $59.2 billion, plus an average of $8.2 billion annually, to keep the rail system well maintained. 

Last April, the Federal Transit Administration announced a competitive grant program to try and improve the quality of the nation's bus fleet. But though applications for the grants have totaled over $4.2 billion, the agency only has $775 million to disburse.

To put these numbers in context, the federal stimulus law provided $8.4 billion in transit aid.

Read more...

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FTA chief Peter Rogoff announced the winners of $293 million in competitive grants for bus and streetcar projects today. The biggest chunks of funding will help build streetcar projects in Cincinnati, Charlotte, Fort Worth, and St. Louis, as well as rapid bus corridors in New York and Chicago. All told, the funding will be distributed among 53 projects, chosen from more than 300 applicants.

While streetcar projects got the largest individual grants, most of the funding will go toward bus projects, including a number of grants for smaller cities to build, expand, or improve stations like Des Moines's Multi-Modal Transit Hub. Several bus projects have an information component, promising to make service more predictable and convenient by giving riders a clear sense of when buses will arrive.

Also on the list is Boston's regional bike-share network, slated to receive $3 million to help build more than 500 public bicycle stations. The bike-share project made the cut because of its potential to expand the reach and accessibility of the bus and rail system. Boston's bike-share launch recently got pushed back to 2011, but at that scale, it would be, by far, the largest system in the country.

Here's a sample of the major projects that got a boost:

• Cincinnati will receive $25 million to help build a six-mile streetcar route, with an eye toward spurring mixed-use development downtown. The city planning commission recently took the enlightened step of reducing parking requirements along the future streetcar route.
  
• Chicago received support for a pair of rapid bus projects: $11 million for the Jeffery BRT corridor, which will improve service to major job center on a route with poor access to trains, and $25 million for a two-mile, east-west bus priority street serving several routes downtown.
  
• New York City's 34th Street busway got an $18 million grant. Streetsblog NYC readers have been following this project for a couple of years. NYCDOT recently announced its intention to make 34th Street the first physically separated busway in the city.
  
• One of the surprise winners was Fort Worth, which received about $25 million for a 2.5-mile one-way streetcar loop, intended to serve as the hub in a future network. Streetsblog Network member Fort Worthology called the grant "incredible and extremely positive news" for the larger streetcar project.
  

You can see the complete list of projects here.

Read more...

In addition to the announcement of a new local bike-share system, today's D.C. Bike to Work Day found both the U.S. DOT and the nation's leading bike advocacy groups positioning themselves to claim new victories for cyclists in the coming days.

The U.S. DOT sent several senior officials to this morning's capital-area bike events, using the day to finalize a new expansion of eligibility for federal funding of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure connected to transit.

Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff, who suited up for a morning ride into downtown D.C., told fellow cyclists that "the Obama Administration will keep supporting cycle-friendly policies because they help connect communities in ways that are beneficial to everyone at very little cost," according to a statement released by the U.S. DOT.

First proposed in November, the FTA's new policy for boosting federal bike-ped spending sets radius surrounding a transit station in which bike infrastructure projects would be eligible for aid at three miles. Pedestrian projects within a half-mile of transit stations would be eligible for federal assistance. The previous regulatory radius was 1,500 feet, in most cases.

Meanwhile, nine national cycling and pedestrian advocacy groups released a letter in advance of Bike to Work Day seeking extra clean transport funding from the new Senate climate bill. The groups studiously avoided the critical tone that the transit industry and state DOTs used on Wednesday to seek a greater share of the revenue from the climate measure; nonetheless, the bike-ped backers urged sponsors Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) to lift their legislation's limit on transport spending.

Read more...