The Senate Democrats predict enormous cuts to transit funding in the New York region if the Republican transportation bill becomes law. Image: Tri-State Transportation Campaign

Rep. John Mica’s proposed transportation bill would take a machete to federal transportation spending, cutting overall transportation funding by a third and entirely eliminating dedicated funds for pedestrian and bike infrastructure.

In New York, the effects would be especially dire. Statewide, the total cuts would inch up to 37 percent, according to calculations by the Democrat-controlled Senate Banking Committee (thanks to Ya-Ting Liu at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign for compiling these numbers).

While nationwide, Mica would maintain the 80/20 split between highway and transit spending, New York and its neighbors flex some of their highway dollars to support transit. In the tri-state region, cuts to federal “highway” spending translate into cuts to transit spending as well. Under the Mica proposal, federal highway spending in New York would fall by $568 million a year from current levels, while transit spending would be cut by $646 million. Those austerity levels would be locked in for six years.

At a time when the MTA is already facing a $10 billion deficit in its capital plan through 2014, those cuts could be devastating.

An MTA spokesperson told us that Mica’s plan, which is only an outline at this point, does not contain enough detail to assess the exact impact on the agency and transit riders. “While we support his efforts to promote efficiency, we are concerned about the level of funding that he intends to include in his legislation,” he continued.

New York representatives blasted the proposal. “We are extremely concerned about what a 34 percent cut would mean for all of New York’s needs,” a spokesperson for Rep. Jerry Nadler told Streetsblog. “This would be devastating when we’re already struggling to stay afloat with the resources already available.”

Nadler’s office also pointed out that Mica proposes increasing the share of transit funds that go to suburban and rural areas, as well as to the elderly, disabled and transit-dependent. Said Nadler’s spokesperson: “Given that the funding levels are cut, they can probably only accomplish this by taking money from the other transit programs that benefit urban areas like Rail Modernization. This is really bad for NYC/MTA and other cities with older subway systems (e.g. Boston, Chicago).”

Sen. Chuck Schumer responded to the Republican proposal over Twitter. “Rep Mica plan to cut infrastructure is job-killing, future-suffocating, pessimistic vision of US as ‘can’t do’ nation,” he wrote.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand focused on the economic impact of the Mica plan: “We all agree that we must reduce spending, but the House Republicans are determined to slash all the way to the bone and New York would disproportionally pay the price. Infrastructure investments are vital to New York and America’s economic future. But rather than invest in our future, this misguided House proposal would cut approximately 44,625 jobs in New York State alone, and more than 600,000 nationwide. New Yorkers and organizations from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the AFL-CIO agree that this proposal is the wrong direction.”

The Obama administration's report emphasizes how much Americans spend on transportation costs and ties the financial burden to car dependence. Graphic: U.S. Treasury/Council of Economic Advisers

When President Obama announced his push for a long-term transportation bill on Monday, he introduced a report by his Council of Economic Advisors and the Treasury Department analyzing the economic impact of infrastructure investment [PDF]. At face value, the numbers in the president’s plan might not look so impressive. It calls for rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads, laying and maintaining 4,000 miles of railways, and the restoration of 150 miles of airport runways.

If you’re hoping for an all-out push for sustainable transportation and livable streets, you may be wondering whether this signifies much of a change to the highway-centric status quo. Look at the underlying message, and it does.

The headline numbers sit on top of a broad strategy that groups including Transportation for America, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Transportation Equity Network, and U.S. PIRG have all applauded. There are still few specifics in the administration’s plan, but here’s a quick cheat sheet to the elements of the report that transportation reformers find so encouraging.

It emphasizes the need to provide American families with a range of transportation options, not just driving.

The report calls attention to the heavy burden that high transportation costs place on the middle class. “The average American family spends more than $8,600 a year on transportation, one-third more than they spend on food,” it states, pointing out that the wealthiest 10 percent spend only 9 percent of their income on transportation, while everyone else shells out 16 percent of our income to move from point A to point B.

The report links high transportation costs to car dependence and makes the case for increasing access to transit and other transportation options, asserting that “[t]his burden is due in large part to the lack of alternatives to expensive and often congested automobile travel. Multi-modal transportation investments are critical to get American families moving again without wasting their time and their money sitting in traffic.”

It makes the case for a “fix-it first” approach to highways — which should help put the brakes on sprawl.

The administration notes that the decrepit state of the nation’s roadways is exerting a toll on Americans’ household budgets through “car maintenance due to potholes and poor road conditions.” And it refers to the work of economist Edward Gramlich, who argued that “the greatest return on investment can be garnered from spending on maintenance of existing highways.” The nation’s highway spending should be targeted at keeping our existing roads in a state of good repair, not the over-expansion of the interstate system.

It advances the idea that America needs a new system of transportation investment that fund projects based on merit, not politics or formulas.

The report continues to make the administration’s case for a national infrastructure bank that would provide a mechanism for investing strategically in infrastructure. Instead of allocating transportation funds with a haphazard, often politically-driven system that ends up favoring highways-to-nowhere, the report notes that “a well designed infrastructure” bank would leverage private capital to “fill the gaps in our infrastructure funding system, which currently disadvantage investments in multi-modal” projects and projects that cross state lines.

It advocates for investments in “healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods, whether rural, urban or suburban.”

The report cites the U.S. DOT’s six principles of livability and mentions the success of transit-oriented development as a path toward improving neighborhood economies.

The time is now.

The economic downturn represents an opportunity for smart spending right now, according to the report. With construction costs down, low bids have allowed stimulus funds to stretch 10 to 20 percent more than predicted. So if anyone was wondering: this is the perfect time to start building.

The administration is framing its infrastructure push as way to keep America globally competitive, echoing a theme which reform-minded lawmakers like Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer have been sounding for years: that the U.S. is lagging behind other nations in infrastructure investment, as the two percent of GDP our country spends annually is dwarfed by Europe’s five percent and China’s nine percent.

The release of the report hasn’t changed the timing of the six-year transportation reauthorization, which is expected to move soon after the next Congress convenes in 2011. But administration officials have made clear that they will push for the infrastructure bank — the “$50 billion down payment” often referenced in the press — when Congress comes back after the elections for its lame duck session. Lawmakers will need to address the December 31 expiration of the current extension of SAFETEA-LU, but they will likely just extend it again.

The question then will simply be, how long of an extension will they authorize? A short extension will signal a willingness to take up a real reauthorization soon.

U.S. DOT Deputy Assistant Secretary Beth Osborne. Photo: Adam Voiland

Federal lawmakers usually set transportation policy by authorizing a major spending bill every five or six years. The last of these bills — known as SAFETEA-LU — expired in 2009, but lawmakers’ efforts to agree on a reauthorization bill have languished in Congressional committees due to disagreements about how to pay for it.

Since SAFETEA-LU expired, Congress has passed stopgap spending measures to keep the system functioning; however, the lack of a coherent, long-term vision has left state and city transportation departments adrift and has made it challenging for them to plan strategically.

On Labor Day, President Obama put transportation near the top of his agenda by calling on Congress to tackle stagnant job growth by repairing and upgrading infrastructure. He asked Congress to ramp up investment in roads and rail, create a federal infrastructure bank that would help fund large and complex projects, reform the Balkanized structure of federal transportation spending programs, and make the nation’s transportation system safer and more livable. Advocates for shifting away from the highway-centric effects of current federal policy were encouraged by Obama’s use of the word “reform,” and the lack of any mention of expanding highways.

However, in many ways, Obama’s Labor Day proposal lacked specificity. Most notably, it offered little insight into how the administration expects Congress to pay for the next reauthorization. At yesterday’s event, the deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy at U.S. DOT, Beth Osborne, made clear the lack of specificity was by design. “I’ll be very honest. There aren’t a lot of details beneath what we put out to the public,” she said. “We really want to go at this in cooperation with Congress.”

And that process, she warned, won’t necessarily be a smooth one. While the last several authorizations have had plenty of funding, the program is broke this time around due to the dwindling power of the gas tax. “It’s not going to be as easy, but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing,” she said.

One of the administration’s priorities, she noted, will be to improve the livability of the nation’s cities and towns. Critics in Washington, she said, have told her that livability is hard to define, but that the concept has proven easy enough to grasp for people outside of politics:

Interestingly, I really only hear that inside the Beltway. When you travel with the Secretary nobody thinks it’s hard to define and nobody needs it defined. They know exactly what we’re talking about. And it is remarkable. This is not a regional thing, this is not a big community versus small community thing. People really get what you’re talking about. What we’re talking about with livability is a community that has transportation choices, different types of housing, and destinations close to your home. That’s it. Not a terribly complex concept.

Maryland Senator Ben Cardin addresses the crowd yesterday. Photo: Adam Voiland

The head of the District Department of Transportation, Gabe Klein, called the current moment one of the scariest times in transportation history. He warned that lawmakers have difficult and uncomfortable decisions ahead about how to pay for the reauthorization bill.

Klein emphasized the need for diversified sources of funding for transportation investment, despite the political challenges. He noted, for example, that local jurisdictions, like DC, should have the latitude to explore congestion pricing as a way to raise revenue.

During the same panel, Richard Sarles, the interim general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) explained that his agency is spending much of its funding on efforts to improve the safety of its system after a catastrophic Metro collision last summer. With little clarity about what the future holds, Sarles warned that there simply aren’t funds available to address large expected increases in ridership on city transit systems in the coming years.

Reform-minded lawmakers, most notably House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Jim Oberstar (D-MN), have made it an urgent priority to reauthorize the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA-LU, or, more commonly, the transportation bill). But with revenues from the stagnant gas tax flagging, lawmakers can’t agree on how to raise the funds needed for the bill, and they’ve postponed dealing with the problem by passing a series of emergency extensions.

The frustration was evident among attendees at yesterday's conference. "There’s no innovation right now," said Faramarz Mokhtari, a planner at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. "The status quo is continuing."

Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John Kerry (D-MA), right, with onetime climate bill cosponsor Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at left. (Photo: CSM)

"This is one of those cases where we really can't even talk about the merits of any portion of the bill because the fundamental position is flawed," Millar said.

Referring to the legislation's promise of funding for the clean transport and land-use grants known as "CLEAN TEA" and TIGER, he added, "Many of those are very good ideas … but you can't make those ideas work if there's no significant funding to make them work, and this bill would aggravate the funding situation for public transit."

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), was more direct in outlining where state DOTs want to see the Senate climate bill's fuel revenues directed. "Channel[ing] every dollar through the highway trust fund," he said, would help the industry break through a congressional stalemate and win passage of a new six-year federal transport bill.

Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors, and Pete Ruane, president of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, echoed Horsley's interpretation of the new fuel fees in the climate bill -- which are imposed on oil companies and refiners but are likely to be passed along through higher gas prices -- as a de facto "user fee" on drivers.

The climate proposal, Ruane said, does "nothing more than finance a lot of goals, which are enviable in part, on the backs of transportation users."

It remains to be seen whether the transportation industry's combative stance against the partial diversion of the bill's transportation revenue, billed as a "call for a rewrite" of the climate legislation, will help force senators into restructuring the measure. Ruane said he "like[s] the odds" facing the four groups.

But one congressional source was befuddled by APTA's move to "bit[e] the hand that feeds them" by criticizing a climate bill that stands to give broad, lasting benefits to rail and bus systems.

“Perhaps these groups are confused about the purpose of the climate bill: It’s to reduce emissions, not increase them," the source told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "The Kerry-Lieberman bill invests more money in transportation than any of the previous climate bills. Instead of working constructively to increase that investment, they are biting the hand that feeds them. Why is APTA advocating for a strategy that will decrease the amount of climate money going to transit? Transit makes out like a bandit in the Kerry-Lieberman bill.”

APTA's alignment with AASHTO and the construction industry groups marks a split of sorts from the Transportation for America (T4A) infrastructure reform coalition, which has praised the upper-chamber climate bill's focus on investing in clean transport projects while taking no official position on the legislation as a whole.

The Senate climate plan provides "a new source of revenue" for transportation, T4A spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview. "This is not a gas tax, and it's not conceived of as a supplement to the highway trust fund, for whatever the business-as-usual, run-of-the-mill highway trust fund projects are."

How big would that new source of transportation revenue be, relative to the total amount raised by the Senate climate bill's new fuel fees? APTA, AASHTO, and 25 other industry groups shared their estimates in a letter sent today to the legislation's chief sponsors, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT):

In 2013, fees from on-road fuel consumption [under the climate proposal] would generate at least $19.5 billion.  Instead of returning revenue from these fees to improving the transportation system, the bill diverts at least 77 percent of the funds away from transportation infrastructure investment.  As carbon prices increase, the bill diverts as much as 91 percent of fuel revenues.  Of particular concern, the bill limits new investment in the Highway Trust Fund to $2.5 billion per year, far below the amount the bill raises from system users. 

Anti-tax protesters. (Photo: Tribune)

After all, even the Obama administration -- which last spring called for an 18-month delay in taking up House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar's (D-MN) infrastructure measure -- has signaled a willingness to begin talks on broader policy changes by next spring.

But that outcome assumes that Congress and the White House can reach an agreement by early 2011 on how to find as much as $200 billion to pay for a significant six-year investment in infrastructure.

Right now there remains only two practical options on the table: paying for a new transport bill with general Treasury money, which would amount to deficit spending at a time when White House aides profess mounting concerns about the nation's red ink; and raising the federal gas tax, which the president has flatly ruled out.

What would the worst-case scenario look like? It is rarely mentioned on the record by Washington infrastructure watchers, but former Transportation Secretary James Burnley IV outlined it neatly in an interview this week with D.C. Velocity:

I started saying a year ago that we were facing four years of short-term extensions of existing [federal transport funding] programs, and I'm sorry to say this is a prediction that I believe will come true. It will be especially difficult for the Obama administration and Congress to agree on a solution to the [highway] trust fund crisis if the political environment holds in November and we have more Republicans occupying both Houses who are skeptical of higher taxes of any kind.

What worries me is that the whole concept of the trust fund is breaking down. You can't make the argument with a straight face that the trust fund should be spent just on transportation programs and that it should be walled off from the appropriations process while at the same time getting huge sums of money from general revenues. That is a corrosive process. By 2013, we could find the whole notion of the trust fund obsolete.

What Burnley does not mention is that extending the 2005 transportation law past the current fiscal year would require continued transfers from the Treasury (what he calls "general revenues") to the highway trust fund, which belies its name by providing a regular source of funding for transit as well as roads.

The jobs bill that President Obama signed last month shifts $19.5 billion into the trust fund, a sum expected to keep it solvent until the end of fiscal year 2010, but preserving even the inadequate existing levels of maintenance for roads and rails would require extra money this fall unless Congress passes a new transportation bill.

Still, Burnley's assessment of the political reality rings true. With the rise of the anti-tax Tea Party movement drawing media and public attention to the prospect of future tax hikes to help shrink the deficit, Democrats are already taking great care to reinforce the president's campaign pledge not to raise taxes for households earning less than $250,000 a year. Anyone predicting a more hospitable environment on the Hill next year for raising gas taxes to pay for infrastructure would be safely accused of wishful thinking.

And the more that Democrats shrink from the T-word, the stronger the likelihood that the 2005 transport law would be extended until after the 2012 presidential race -- barring a breakthrough on new financing tactics, that is.

(from left) Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and John Kerry (D-MA) (Photo: Getty Images)

The climate measure being crafted by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) is not expected to hit the street until Earth Day later this month. But with Graham indicating that a significant portion of the legislation's new gas fee would be repaid to consumers via rebates, the group of eight senators questioned the effectiveness of adding new fuel charges without attempting to make the nation's existing infrastructure more efficient.

"While we support your work to develop comprehensive legislation," the eight Democratic senators wrote to Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman, "we are concerned that your approach may not result in sufficient emission or oil consumption reductions from the transportation sector and may inadvertently hinder our efforts to pass a surface transportation authorization bill this year."

Many details of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman approach remain unclear, including how much of the revenue raised by the new fuel fee would be rebated back to taxpayers rather than set aside for other uses. But one Hill source familiar with the issue said that the very act of raising gas taxes for non-transportation purposes would be a very bad sign for future federal reform efforts.

"Raising the gas tax and not putting it towards transportation will be debilitating to the transportation bill," the source told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "At what point is it less debilitating than not? That's hard to say ... We're not going to raise the gas tax 15, 20 cents through this linked fee and turn around six months later to [raise it to] pay for transportation. It's just not going to happen."

To be sure, the transportation industry groups that contacted Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman this week agree on the need to direct money raised by any new fuel fees towards the nation's built environment. But the groups are far from any consensus on how such revenue should be spent.

A coalition of pro-reform forces -- such as Transportation for America, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and the Complete Streets Coalition -- urged the three senators to spend carbon fees on helping states and localities craft long-term land use plans, a framework outlined in the legislation known informally as "CLEAN TEA."

"[B]ecause our federal transportation policy does not currently support oil savings or greenhouse gas reduction, we have deep concerns about proposals to deposit funds from sales of carbon permits in the highway trust fund without additional policies to direct those funds toward transportation projects that advance our climate and energy goals," the reform groups wrote in their letter to the senators.

A separate alliance of road and transit industry forces -- such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), and several labor unions -- made no bones about their desire to see any new carbon taxes go to the perennially cash-strapped highway trust fund.

"New fees placed on transportation fuels should be dedicated to the highway trust fund and invested along with other surface transportation funds under a multi-year highway and transit authorization bill," the 27 industry groups wrote to Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman, warning that passage of any new federal transport bill "will be very difficult, if not impossible," should a new fuel fee pass without its proceeds going towards infrastructure.

Three groups signed onto both letters: America Bikes, the League of American Bicyclists, and the Safe Routes to School National Partnership.

Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR), at left, joined Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) to introduce a Wall Street transaction tax in December. (Photo: AP/Oregonian)

But the tax proposal has since lost steam in Washington transportation debate, getting little notice from lawmakers who strongly support taking up a new six-year infrastructure bill in 2010 even as it remains a magnet for progressives looking to rein in financial industry excesses.

What happened to the idea of using an oil futures transaction fee -- set at 0.02 percent in a December bill offered by Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) -- to fund long-term federal transportation projects?

Jim Berard, spokesman for the House infrastructure panel, explained in an interview late last week that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had conducted a preliminary analysis that found the transaction tax would raise less money than lawmakers had initially hoped. The reason for the lower-than-expected revenue, Berard said, was the rationale hinted at by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in November: a tax levied only on domestic futures would end up pushing trades overseas.

"What sounded like a really good solution six months ago turned out to be not as good as we thought, and just not as viable," Berard told Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

That leaves federal transportation policymakers essentially where they were at this time last year, searching for a politically feasible stand-in for a gas tax increase that the White House and congressional Democratic leaders have both ruled out for now.

Even as raising the gas tax to pay for transport legislation remains unpopular, senators are preparing to release a new climate change bill later this month that would impose a new "linked fee" on motor fuel. Such a fee could be used in part to fund new infrastructure projects, but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the architects of the new climate measure, told The Hill last month that most of the resulting revenue would be sent back to drivers in the form of rebates.

The infrastructure panel's highways and transit subcommittee, chaired by DeFazio, plans a hearing next week on "innovative financing" strategies, and Berard said panel chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) continues to search for a revenue plan that can unify the capital's disparate transportation players -- House and Senate leaders, the U.S. DOT, the White House, state DOTs, reform groups, and transit advocates.

(Photo: Pop and Politics)

In order to repay the Treasury for its up-front bond issue, Congress would ultimately need to raise the gas tax -- a step lawmakers have been unwilling to take since 1993, and one that the White House has ruled out for the time being.

"The idea of waiting three or four years for the economy to recover would be an appealing part of" the idea, Iowa state DOT chief Nancy Richardson told Oberstar when he sought her reaction to the plan at a Friday House hearing. "[That] would allow it to appeal to some of the dissenters in terms of increasing funding."

Delaying for three or four years, however, also would assume that future Congresses would be more open to voting on a gas-tax hike that few lawmakers are eager to debate, even in rosy economic times. The evidence of success for such kick-the-can-down-the-road moves is few and far between: both parties, for example, have habitually voted to postpone previously scheduled cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors rather than fix the long-term formula.

In addition, the growing production boom in semi- and fully electric cars casts doubt on the gas tax's ability to raise sustainable revenue for transportation going forward. Depending on how popular highly fuel-efficient cars become by the time Congress considers a future gas tax change, the cents-per-gallon increase needed to repay the Treasury may be much higher than any current predictions.

The gas-tax bonding plan has a third potential hiccup. Oberstar suggested that $130 billion in Treasury bonds would be sufficient to close the gap between the cost of his six-year transport bill and anticipated gas-tax revenue. Yet that total would not appear to cover the estimated $50 billion that Oberstar's legislation would set aside for high-speed rail.

Securing sufficient votes from fiscally conservative Democrats and Senate Republicans for deficit spending on high-speed rail would be difficult on its own, and adding the bonding proposal could add complications.

Oberstar spokesman Jim Berard cautioned that the bonding idea is among several "proposals that have been floating around" for financing a new transport bill, adding: "There isn't a magic bullet out there that seems to have captured everybody's imagination. So we don't want to get too far out in front of this thing because we don't want to give the impression that we've found the answer."

Oberstar (center) joined New York City transport chief Janette Sadik-Khan (right) at today's event. (Photo: B.Clements, Finance & Commerce)

Oberstar appeared at an event marking Minneapolis' move to join the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), founded 14 years ago by then-New York City Transportation Commissioner Elliot Sander to counterbalance the influence of state DOTs' voice in D.C., the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Oberstar's specific remarks on transit operating aid were unavailable as of press time. But transport committee spokesman Jim Berard said the Minnesotan supported "in principle" the concept of allowing transit agencies from areas with populations greater than 200,000 to use their federal transportation formula grants on operating expenses.

Under current law, urban transit agencies are restricted to spending federal formula money on capital expenses, such as purchasing new rail cars or laying track for an expanded line.

Congress agreed last year to give transit officials the freedom to redirect 10 percent of their federal stimulus aid to operating budgets, underscoring that the change was a temporary response to the recession.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the transit industry's chief lobbying group for more than a century, has opposed the use of formula grants for transit operating, preferring that already-scarce highway trust fund dollars be reserved for capital spending on rail and buses. APTA did not return a request for comment by press time on the growing support for changing the existing rules governing transit operating funds.

It's worth noting that the change Oberstar and LaHood have endorsed would not come until lawmakers take up a new long-term federal transportation bill, which may not occur until next year. Also left undetermined is the share of formula funds that would be made available for transit operating costs if the proposal becomes law; legislation offered by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) would okay the use of between 30 percent and one-half of federal formula grants.

(ed. note: The post above has been edited to clarify the distinction between capital and operating expenses.)

Despite the frequent reluctance of rural lawmakers to support more federal investment in transit, a majority of rural and urban voters alike believe their home towns would gain from a local transit expansion, according to a new poll released today by the infrastructure reform group Transportation for America (T4A) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

When asked if increased transit investment would help their community, 69 percent of poll respondents answered in the affirmative, including 74 percent of suburbanites and 55 percent of rural residents. Those numbers decreased for a separate question that asked whether transit should get more federal funding, but a majority of voters from both suburban (59 percent) and rural (50 percent) areas remained supportive.

The survey, conducted four weeks ago by pollsters from both GOP- and Democratic-aligned firms, also sought to gauge public consciousness of U.S. transportation spending patterns. When respondents were asked what share of federal transport dollars they thought should go to transit, the mean answer was 37 percent. Transit's actual share is about 19 percent.

David Metz of Fairbank Maslin Maullin Metz & Associates, one of two pollsters who worked on the survey, told reporters that its conclusion was clear: "Americans want more transportation options than they have today," he said. "The vast majority of Americans say they have no choice but to drive as much as they do and that they would like to drive less."

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have made positive predictions recently about the fate of the six-year transportation bill offered last June in the lower chamber. Indeed, T4A depicted its poll as a valuable messaging tool in the wake of Sen. George Voinovich's (R-OH) extraction of a vow from Democratic leaders to take up long-term infrastructure legislation before 2011.

But the lack of a sustainable revenue source to pay for that long-term bill, expected to cost upwards of $450 billion, continues to hamstring the effort. Few if any observers of the Washington transportation debate view a new bill as politically feasible in 2010, particularly given the opposition of both the White House and Congress to increasing the gas tax while the recession still looms.

Should this month's stirrings of possible momentum for a new bill grow stronger in recent months, the T4A poll offers green groups, social-equity advocates, and other pro-reform interests valuable insights on how to sell voters on a more transit-focused six-year bill.

Given the option of endorsing several arguments in favor of spending more on transit and bike-ped infrastructure, survey respondents were most strongly swayed by a narrative that the pollsters billed as "Accountability," which was associated with the following statement: "Government officials must be held accountable for how our transportation tax dollars are spent. We cannot afford to build more roads while existing roads are in disrepair."

More than half of polled voters found the "Accountability" argument very convincing, with three other narratives -- focusing on greater access for lower-income populations, the public health upside of bike-ped spending, and the absence of a 21st-century transportation network -- running behind.

The poll also suggested that voters would be receptive to a greater reliance on local taxes and fees to leverage federal transportation funding.

Asked if they would support a transit expansion in their community that required tax increases, 51 percent of poll respondents expressed either strong or moderate support, with 46 percent either strongly or moderately opposed. The share of voters strongly opposed to local taxation for transit (32 percent), however, topped the share that strongly supported those taxes (24 percent).

The margin of error for the poll, whic surveyed 800 registered voters, was about 3.5 percent.

House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Capitol Chatter)

The Minnesotan, who clashed openly with the White House this year over its preference to delay new transport legislation until 2011, said he was "encouraged that we will be able to complete the bill in this session of Congress."

One unspoken source of urgency for Oberstar and fellow House members: waiting until next year to take up a new transport bill would mean starting from scratch after the midterm elections, which could significantly shrink the size of the Democrats' majority. A more conservative transport committee would complicate the path to passage for the new transit spending envisioned in Oberstar's current bill.

Oberstar was the dominant force at the stimulus hearing, scheduled for a Friday afternoon when many members were in the process of returning home for Congress' Easter recess. The chairman took the opportunity to press witnesses on unresolved policy controversies, including the debate over allowing transit agencies to spend federal aid on operating -- a representative for the transit industry's lobbying group called for extending the 10-percent flexibility approved last year -- and the need for Senate movement on the "second stimulus" that cleared the House in December.

"We have to sustain those existing jobs and investments so the private sector can catch up -- one more summer of stimulus will set the stage and move the country forward," Oberstar said, deeming the Senate's progress on infrastructure job creation "not sufficient."

During a discussion on the massive financing gap that is bogging down the next transport bill, Oberstar also pooh-poohed the prospects of tolling interstate highways built during the road program's postwar heyday. Pennsylvania is currently pushing for federal approval to add tolls to an existing interstate.

"We're not going to allow tolling of the interstate highway system," Oberstar said. "It's already been built and paid for."

Bicyclists in Philadelphia, where $23 million in TIGER money was awarded to build new trails. (Photo: BCGP)

"People at home really think they’re very good," Boxer said of the TIGER grants, seeking advice from deputy U.S. DOT secretary John Porcari on how to write the program into her forthcoming six-year transportation legislation.

TIGER, short for Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery, awarded $1.5 billion to infrastructure projects that best met a series of criteria set by the Obama administration, including economic growth potential and environmental benefits. Transportation reformers have hailed the program as a first step in creating a federal system that funds projects based on merit rather than state-by-state formulas.

Porcari echoed that praise, describing TIGER as "the way to the future in intermodal transportation," but offered few details on how the program might be enshrined in the long-term legislation being drafted by Boxer’s panel. 

The senior Republican on the Senate environment panel today criticized the House's six-year transportation bill, lamenting that the measure "focus[es] very heavily on transit, bike paths, and sidewalks" and carves out a strong federal role in "decisions historically left to the state level."

Inhofe's concerns, raised at the latest in the environment committee's series of hearings aimed at marshaling consensus for a new long-term transport bill, suggest that the increased transit, bike-ped, and urban policy investments envisioned by the House measure could face resistance from rural senators who fear less of a federal emphasis on roads.

"We cannot grow the program in urban areas while ignoring the rural component," Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said, describing rail and bike usage as "geographically and climatically prohibitive" in his state, currently the nation's least-populated.

Environment committee chief Barbara Boxer (D-CA) assured Barrasso that "I don't look at writing this bill as rural versus urban." Yet the House legislation offered by transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) would direct significant funding to urban infrastructure needs through a new metropolitan mobility program, a prospect that appeared to unsettle rural lawmakers.

"I don't feel like transit is a great option in our rural areas," said Oklahoma state senator Bryce Marlatt, an invited witness. After Inhofe questioned the Oberstar framework's emphasis on bike-ped and transit spending, Marlatt warned that the House plan could prevent rural areas from joining "the global economy" by boosting road spending.

Alternative perspectives were offered by John Robert Smith, president of the transit advocacy group Reconnecting America, and Scott Haggerty, a supervisor in California's Alameda County who appeared on behalf of the National Association of Counties (NACo).

Smith told senators that the green-transport and land-use grants offered by the Obama administration's multi-agency sustainability office should be open to cities with populations of 50,000 or below, giving rural areas more of an opportunity to compete for federal aid.

Haggerty, for his part, noted that the "overwhelming majority of congestion comes in metro areas" and advised that any project getting funding from Oberstar's proposed urban mobility program should be able to document its benefits for commuters.

Even as the rural-urban debate unfolded, senators sought to steer the hearing towards the fundamental issue stalling progress on a replacement for the 2005 federal transportation law: how to pay for it.

"In terms of infrastructure, our roads and bridges are not getting any better if we neglect them," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said. "We're going to have to address this problem one way or another; we might as well do it and create jobs."

Asked for their thoughts on transportation financing, Haggerty said NACo would back a gas-tax increase -- an option ruled out by the White House for the foreseeable future -- and Smith cited a poll commissioned by Transportation for America that found public support for more infrastructure spending, provided that it was approved in a transparent fashion.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made a surprise visit to the closing reception of the National Bike Summit last night, speaking to a record crowd of bicycle advocates and industry representatives, many of whom spent the day swarming the halls of the Capitol as part of the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) annual lobby day.

"People get it. People want to live in livable communities," LaHood told the crowd, after hoisting himself atop a table in the Dirksen Senate Office Building room so the large gathering could see him. "People want streetcars that are made in Portland, Oregon. People want walking paths, biking paths, and opportunities for families to really do the things they do best, which is to hang together and have fun. You all created an opportunity for America with all of your hard work."

"I’ve been all over America, and where I’ve been in America I’ve been very proud to talk about the fact that people do want alternatives. They want out of their cars, they want out of congestion, they want to live in livable neighborhoods and livable communities." He added, to thunderous applause, "you've got a partner in Ray LaHood."

"Ray, we've got your back," said Congressman Earl Blumenaur, the founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, who told attendees that they have made a difference but there are "a lot of people who don't get the big picture yet."

The reception ended the league's 10th annual summit, which saw a record number of attendees: more than 700 advocates from all over the country took part.

"From my perspective what has changed most dramatically is not just the numbers over the years, but our own belief in the ability we have to convince others this stuff actually works," said Andy Clarke, President of the LAB. "We've got examples in the field now in San Francisco, in Portland, in Chicago, New York City, where you can document a real change in behavior, and we've got mode shift going on and we can see why it's happened." 

The underlying theme, as it has been in years past, was the reauthorization of federal transportation law. Bike advocates also asked lawmakers to expand programs like Safe Routes to School and adopt new legislation to improve conditions for walking and biking.

"It's a challenging time to be asking for more funding," said Clarke. "But this isn't new money, first and foremost. There's money in the system that can be used that isn't being used on safety programs or bridges or congestion relief programs that can very legitimately be used for biking and walking."

That message, said Clarke, is what advocates were urged to tell their representatives.

"I was rather impressed with some of the speeches our people made," said bicycling pioneer Gary Fisher, who attended the summit for the first time. "We keep coming and coming and coming and it keeps getting bigger and bigger."

For more on the National Bike Summit, visit Bike Portland. Jonathan Maus cranked out some excellent coverage.

We've also got video of most of LaHood's speech to the bike summit, but a warning that the quality isn't the best:

Congressman Earl Blumenaur. Photo: Jeffrey Martin, courtesy of the League of American Bicyclists. 

A large crowd of advocates packed a room for the National Bike Summit closing reception in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

Cycling pioneer Gary Fisher meets Transportation Secretary LaHood. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus. (Photo: NYT)

"If Congress is going to act" on a new long-term transportation bill, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy president Keith Laughlin said, "it’s definitely going to be our year. If we are ready."

Laughlin’s phrasing was aimed at stoking cyclists’ appetite for lobbying Congress in favor of pro-bike legislation, such as Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s Active Community Transportation Act. But his caution also reflected the ongoing uncertainty surrounding how lawmakers plan to pay for a new long-term infrastructure bill expected to cost at least $450 billion.

Even if bipartisan support can bring the White House on board for a new bill this year, it remains to be seen whether bike advocates can secure the $2 billion in competitive federal grants that Blumenauer has proposed.

Tyler Frisbee, an aide to the Portland lawmaker who spoke to the Summit on her personal time, was careful to praise House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) as a friend of bicyclists. But Oberstar’s transport legislation, Frisbee said, is "not the bill we want for another eight years … cycling will be light years behind Europe [if it passes]."

Frisbee warned fellow bike advocates that Oberstar views the Blumenauer bill as an expansion of the Non-Motorized Pilot Program that directed $25 million to four trail projects in the 2005 transportation law. Describing her boss’ legislation as separate from that spending, Frisbee said a Senate version would be introduced soon by Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley.

Despite the hazy outlook for congressional action on transportation reform, Rails-to-Trails is continuing to push ahead with its long-term agenda. Laughlin said the group’s 10-year goal is to help pay for bike trails within three miles of 90 percent of American residences, while doubling existing federal bike spending to $9 billion over six years.

"If the bill comes up for a vote, we have a fighting chance, but to win" requires sustained and increased focus on grassroots lobbying of lawmakers, he said.

Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), at right, with ranking Republican Jim Inhofe (OK). (Photo: Politico)

Such willingness to consider a new infrastructure bill before the Obama administration's preferred timeframe of next spring could help thaw the frosty relations between Boxer's panel and the House transportation committee, where chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) has raged against upper-chamber inaction for months.

But lawmakers and industry lobbies have a long way to go before they can sing from the same hymnal on the next transportation bill. Boxer asked representatives of the four lobbies appearing today -- the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), the National Construction Alliance (NCA) and the Associated General Contractors (AGC) -- to parse Oberstar's bill "literally, with a pen" and let senators know which provisions they favored or disliked.

"We're going to take their bill and work from it," Boxer said of the House, which has proposed a $500 billion plan that streamlines 108 categories of formula-based federal transportation spending into four and includes dedicated funding for metropolitan area priorities.

Neither the transit industry nor transportation reform advocacy groups had a representative at the hearing. The four witnesses largely limited their comments to the economic need for a new long-term federal bill, with former AASHTO president Pete Rahn endorsing the price tag of the House bill but suggesting that he viewed it as overly solicitous to transit.

"We need a balanced bill that increases funding for both highways and transit," said Rahn, who leads the Missouri state DOT.

And though the biggest stumbling block facing the next federal transport bill -- namely, the lack of sufficient gas tax revenue to pay for it -- was lamented widely, few offered concrete solutions that would help Congress move forward more quickly.

"The problem we have in infrastructure is not ways to borrow more money," Rahn replied to a question about Build America Bonds, a successful if occasionally controversial infrastructure financing tool established in last year's stimulus law. "We need to find a way to pay for improvements ... We've now topped out the credit card."

Rahn urged lawmakers to address the declining utility of the gas tax, pointing to a "conflict" between its continued role as Washington's transportation revenue-raiser and the growing acknowledgment that oil consumption needs to decrease for environmental and national security reasons.

Griffith Company president Tom Foss, speaking for the AGC, said that industry groups are open to other options, such as increased tolling or an eventual transition to a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax. Still, he added, "the gas tax is still best way to fund" federal transportation law because "we can advertise [it] to the general population."

The hearing took place as the House prepares to vote as soon as tomorrow on a $15 billion jobs bill, already cleared by the Senate, that would extend the 2005 transport law until year's end. Boxer and fellow senators asked the witnesses to underscore the importance of that 10-month extension in conversations with the House, where some Democrats remain reluctant to embrace the upper chamber's jobs package.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) was heard quipping "tough s---t" as he began blocking an extension of transportation law. (Photo: CNN)

The shutdown of federal reimbursement for road, bridge, bike-ped, and transit spending is costing states and localities $183 million per day, according to House transportation committee estimates.

Bunning's action has the effect of a classic filibuster, but his official gambit has been ongoing objection to a vote on extending infrastructure, unemployment, and several other programs. That one-month stopgap would cost $10 billion, which Bunning wants to see paid for by taking money from the White House's stimulus law.

Yet he has refused Senate leaders' offer to vote on his proposal to use stimulus money, acknowledging that it lacks the votes to pass. In the meantime, thousands more U.S. DOT employees, including Federal Transit Administration workers, are facing forced furloughs today.

"The timing could not be worse for a lot of reasons," Nevada state DOT director Susan Martinovich said in a statement released by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). "States need every dollar they can get to improve our aging roads and bridges and put people to work. ... We should be awarding contracts for spring construction right now, but instead many states are forced to delay, and in some cases cancel, projects."

Democrats openly branded Bunning as the face of Senate GOP obstructionism, with several majority-party lawmakers sending him direct cease-and-desist appeals.

"This is completely unacceptable," Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) wrote in a letter to Bunning. "We can’t have an economic recovery if people can’t make ends meet and if transportation projects grind to a halt."

But when Senate Democrats released a new $150 billion jobs plan yesterday that would retroactively extend unemployment benefits until 2011, an extension of federal transportation funding was not part of the package.

The reason for the omission: a re-up of the 2005 transportation law until the end of the year is part of the $15 billion Senate jobs bill that is still awaiting action in the House, where fiscally hawkish Blue Dogs and members of the Congressional Black Caucus remain reluctant to sign off on the legislation.

If the House can muster up the votes to pass the $15 billion Senate measure this week, the U.S. DOT would be able to end its furloughs and spending freezes without the need for Bunning to relent.

Rep. James Clyburn (SC), the House Democrats' No. 3 leader, told reporters yesterday that "no one's got any problem with ... what the [Senate jobs] bill is intended to do." House Democrats are hesitant to endorse the Senate jobs bill, Clyburn said, because of its greater emphasis on tax cuts than on "direct investments." Still, he predicted that House-side questions about the jobs bill could be resolved by today or tomorrow.

In the interim, however, uncertainty reigns for federal transportation rules.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) (Photo: CNN)

But one GOP senator, the notoriously irascible Jim Bunning (KY), objected to the 30-day extension, which also would ensure continued payment of federal unemployment benefits. When Democrats pleaded with Bunning to drop his one-man filibuster effort, Politico heard the retiring Kentuckian offer a terse response: "Tough s--t."

If an extension cannot be passed before the 2005 transportation law officially expires at midnight on Sunday, the result would be a quasi-shutdown of operations at U.S. DOT. A source at the agency told Streetsblog Capitol Hill that all employees of the Federal Highway Administration, save for its chief, would be sent home and states would stop getting reimbursed for their spending on all road projects.

The Federal Transit Administration would see a similar freeze, the U.S. DOT source said, with contract authority to fund local projects sitting in limbo until Congress acts. Perhaps the most untimely delay would occur at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), where regulators are ramping up their oversight efforts after the Toyota recall debacle.

"[I]t is simply unfair for one senator to attempt to hold the Senate hostage,” Dick Durbin (D-IL), the upper chamber's No. 2 leader, said last night in a statement.

Where does that leave Democrats? Working furiously to break through Bunning's roadblock, even as more House members join transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) in raising objections to the Senate jobs bill that would keep existing federal programs intact until 2011.

Oberstar and about two dozen members of his panel take issue with the Senate jobs bill's treatment of $932 million in grants that would be spent this year as part of a 10-month extension of existing transport law. Giving that money to states using the template of 2009 earmarks -- as the Senate jobs bill proposes -- would direct the majority of the money to four states, leaving 22 states with nothing.

A letter sent earlier this week by 23 members of the transportation committee asks for the grant money to be given out on a "discretionary, competitive" basis. However, Oberstar spokesman Jim Berard said in an interview that the chairman has offered a compromise that would allocate the funding based on existing federal transportation formulas.

Berard said that Oberstar would prefer to see the $932 million allocated competitively to projects rather than distributed by formula. But he acknowledged the reasoning behind the Senate's argument that applying for the funding would not facilitate quick job creation. "If we're not going to make it competitive," Berard said, "at least let's make it equitable."

At the moment, the House appears unlikely to act on the jobs legislation until at least next week, giving Oberstar and his panel more time to reach agreement with senators -- and heightening the drama of Bunning's Senate floor show.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) (Photo: UPI)

Voinovich joined four other GOP senators, including newly elected Scott Brown (R-MA), in voting with Democrats to end debate on a $15 billion jobs bill that transfers $20 billion to the nation’s highway trust fund, keeping it solvent until the end of 2010.

But in a statement released just after his vote, Voinovich explained that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made a commitment in exchange for the Ohioan’s support:

I spoke to Majority Leader Reid
prior to this vote and he assured me that he understands the importance
of a surface transportation reauthorization bill. I reiterated that it is the best way to create jobs,
provide an immediate stimulus to the economy, rebuild our nation’s
infrastructure and reduce our carbon footprint.

Leader Reid gave me his
commitment that he will bring the reauthorization of a multi-year
surface transportation bill to the floor for a vote this year. I look
forward to working with Senator Reid, [Senate environment committee chairman Barbara] Boxer [D-CA] and others to do so
as soon as possible so we can put Americans back to work.

Voinovich’s statement — which he passed out paper copies of to reporters after last night’s vote, according to the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim — tracks with Boxer’s comments at a Los Angeles town meeting on Friday, when she vowed to advance her version of a new long-term federal transport bill before the end of the year.

Setting the end of 2010 as the new timetable for a Senate vote on transportation policy would effectively commit Democrats to agreeing on a source of funding that would offset new six-year legislation in the range of $450 billion to $500 billion.

House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) has estimated that about $140 billion in new revenue would be needed to close the gap between anticipated federal gas-tax revenue and the price tag of replacing the 2005 transport law with a new bill.

Could the answer to the Democrats’ transportation financing conundrum be a post-election session (often dubbed a "lame-duck") after this November’s midterms?