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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."

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House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) on Friday renewed his call for action on a new federal infrastructure bill before year's end, using a hearing on the Obama administration's stimulus law to urge passage of long-term legislation as well as a second round of short-term investment in roads, bridges, and rail.

Oberstar invited Joyce Fisk, a construction worker from his home state who gained employment thanks to a stimulus contract, for a second appearance before his panel. After hailing Fisk's "appeal" for a new federal transport law to boost the recession-ravaged construction industry, Oberstar warmly cited the move by Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to use his bill as a starting point in crafting her transportation measure.

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.

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During an otherwise-abbreviated hearing yesterday, Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA)  joined the chorus of praise for the stimulus law’s TIGER program, declaring her intention to add a version of the competitive infrastructure grants to the next long-term federal transportation bill.

"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).

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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."

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This week’s National Bike Summit culminated in an ambitious new campaign to recruit a million bike advocates and the unveiling of a new Google Maps bike feature. But in a Wednesday session dedicated to the outlook for federal bike investments, cycling advocates hesitated to declare that they could secure new commitments from Washington.

"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.

The Senate today took its first steps towards voting on a new long-term federal transportation bill, with environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) vowing to take up a successor to the 2005 infrastructure law before 2011 and indicating she would use the House's already-introduced version as a framework.

Boxer described today's hearing in her panel as "the kickoff" of the upper chamber's drafting of new legislation governing U.S. road, transit, bridge, port, and rail policy. "Our intention is to hold a series of hearings and write the bill while you are still here and while Senator [George] Voinovich [R-OH] is still here," she told Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), who will retire at the end of the year.

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.

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Federal infrastructure funding and many U.S. DOT workers remain in limbo today as Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) continues his one-man filibuster of legislation extending the 2005 transport law, turning himself into a Democratic target and a poster child for Washington gridlock.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) took to the floor of Congress' upper chamber this morning to seek Bunning's consent for a restoration of federal transport law and a one-month extension of unemployment benefits, but the cantankerous Kentuckian would not yield -- even to a fellow Republican.

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.

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A familiar script for Washington infrastructure watchers began to unfold last night on the Senate floor, as House-side resistance to a 10-month extension of existing federal transportation law prompted Democratic leaders to seek a quick deal on a one-month stopgap -- the fourth such short-term move in six months.

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.

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Compelling infrastructure news out of the Senate last night: The long-delayed successor to the 2005 federal transportation law could come to a vote sooner than the spring 2011 timetable sought by the Obama administration, thanks to a promise secured by Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) in exchange for his vote in favor of the Democratic jobs bill.

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?