Streetsblog New York City

The Republican presidential campaign recently produced a couple of characteristic bits of what Americans, for lack of a better word, call “news”: Newt Gingrich declaring that New Yorkers “live in high rises and ride the subway” and thus don’t care about gasoline prices; and Tea Party “activists” in Virginia, Florida and Maine convinced that smart-growth initiatives are — wait for it — a UN plot!

Unfortunately, nuttiness like this is no new thing, and its reach is longer than you might think. It has its roots in an antiquated and peculiarly American belief system that is standing in the way of improved urban livability.

Let’s start with gas prices. In recent weeks, Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and House Speaker John Boehner have all played to the notion that gas prices have doubled since President Obama took office. The price of gas is notoriously volatile; the national average price has actually fallen in 45 of the past 100 months (Excel spreadsheet). So a fair accounting would employ the U.S. average over an entire presidency, as in this chart, for the three most recent:

The chart makes clear that it was former oilman George W. Bush, not Obama, who came closest to presiding over a doubling of gas prices.

At one level, Gingrich and company are merely shilling for the Keystone XL pipeline. But of course excavating Canadian tar sands oil and piping it to Houston is so costly and energy-intensive that without high gas prices, the venture would collapse.

That aside, consider what Gingrich is really saying when he derides New Yorkers as elitists because each uptick in the price of gas doesn’t make us itchy to start a new war. In one way, he has a point. Unlike our countrymen trapped in punishing commutes and paying off two-car garages, we big city dwellers are fairly well insulated from fluctuating gas prices. And unlike big-box suburbs and the Sunbelt, which were built on the inefficiency of cars, highways, supersized houses and office parks, New York is built on the efficiency of dense neighborhoods and public transportation.

To anyone with common sense, that difference makes the ‘burbs brittle and cities resilient. To Newt, it makes city dwellers suspect.

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Mitt Romney won Iowa by 8 votes a day after making a weak argument against federal funding of Amtrak. Photo: Getty Images

In a landslide (er, eight-vote) victory over former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucus last night, Mitt Romney solidified his lead over the rag-tag field of GOP nominees. He also took an opportunity, the day before the caucus, to make a tired old argument against public support of passenger rail service.

I gotta cap federal spending, and then I’ve got to balance the budget. Now how do you go about doing that?

[Brief heckling interlude]

My view is this: What you do to get our budget in line is you say this. You take all the programs the federal government has, and you say, “Which of these programs is so critical that we gotta have it?” And those things we keep.

But those programs that don’t pass the following test we gotta get rid of, and this is my test: Is this program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And on that basis we’ll get rid of some programs, even some we like.

[Takes an easy shot at "Obamacare".]

And there’s some other things — look, Amtrak ought to stand on its own feet or its own wheels or whatever you’d say. And I like the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities but I’m not willing to borrow money from China to pay for it.

(Hat tip to Transportation Nation for breaking the story and providing the audio.)

In this brief moment, Romney staked out several positions that distinguish him from the rest of the pack. First, he acknowledged the existence of federal programs worth keeping — not something many Republicans want to do in these slash-and-burn days. And second, he actually mentioned transportation, which most of the field has completely ignored.

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With all eyes on today’s Iowa caucuses, it’s worth noting that this year’s vocal crop of GOP candidates has been mostly silent on the subject of transportation and urban issues in general.

The candidates have given precious few hints as to what their transportation policies would look like if elected. Photo: Lehigh Valley Live

A common theme across most candidates’ platforms is the elimination of federal programs in favor of state ones, and incentives (read: tax cuts) for the private sector to come in and do things themselves. A transportation policy under any member of the GOP field would likely favor state infrastructure banks over a national one, favor loan programs over grants, and favor automotive infrastructure over bike/ped/transit. But the truth is that we just don’t know, since for the most part they won’t say.

Here’s a recap of what’s on record:

• Rick Santorum has probably said the least, but during his time in Congress, he voted in favor of most transportation bills that came up (except the Intermodal Transportation Amendment of 1998, which passed the Senate by a margin of 96 to 4).
• At a September debate, Rick Perry vowed to rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure, but attacked Obama’s proposal to rebuild America’s.
• Back in February, Michele Bachmann knocked Obama for spending “$53 billion we don’t have on rail projects” (though she was responding to the 2012 budget, which only contained $8.3 billion for rail), but she had championed “smart and targeted investment” in highway construction in a couple of 2009 op-eds.
• Ron Paul’s press secretary recently told the New York Times that the Congressman “thinks high-speed rail is a very exciting idea and could be a very worthwhile project in many cases.” Rep. Paul signed a letter in 2009 asking for federal money for high-speed rail in Texas, but Paul’s spokesperson explained that this was less about supporting high-speed rail than it was about ensuring Texas’ slice of federal dollars. (High-speed rail? Golly, no! I was just after the pork! …And pork is bad!)

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Out of 11 transportation-related measures that were voted on Tuesday, seven represented a victory for transit, two were losses to learn from, and two more aren’t really a win one way or another but are worth noting. According to the Center for Transportation Excellence, these numbers bring the year’s total to an impressive 79 percent win rate for transit. Especially impressive is the fact that most of these measures involved a tax of some sort, and people were willing to pay it if it meant better transit service – even in tough economic times.

Clark County's campaign to keep bus service won Tuesday, 54-46.

Angie has profiled the victory in Durham and the loss in Seattle. Here are the rest of the results:

In Montcalm County, MI, a proposed property tax hike to fund bus service failed 39-61.

A terrible idea failed to catch on in Cincinnati, but the closeness of the final tally showed there’s still work to be done. The proposal to ban any forward movement on building a streetcar system lost, but the vote was 49-51. Still, this loss was a big win for transit.

Bad news for residents of Trumbull County, Ohio: the property tax increase that would have saved their transit system failed 36-64. If the county is to be believed, this means the transit system will shut down entirely, a huge loss, especially for the county’s most vulnerable residents. According to a local paper, “In 2010, the transit provided 64,249 trips: 18,922 for senior citizens, 21,013 for the disabled, 16,131 for students, and 8,183 for other residents.”

The 54-46 passage of Proposition 1 in Clark County, Washington was a big win for transit. Residents of the Washington-side suburbs of Portland will pay another 0.2 percent sales tax in order to stave off harsh cuts to their transit service. Even the normally anti-tax local paper said the vote was essential to maintaining quality of life in the county.

The counting of the statewide initiative 1125 in Washington went into the next day, but we can say definitively now that this bad idea has lost – at last count, it had 48.44 percent of the vote. The measure would have put serious restrictions on tolling at a time when tolling is one of very few funding mechanisms available to states. Even worse, it would have codified a pro-roads bias by insisting that tolling revenues could only pay for roads. It also singled out light rail, banning it on the I-90 bridge.

* The proposal to increase the Lorain County sales tax failed pretty spectacularly — 32-68. Transit advocates took note of this one but aren’t counting it as a loss, since the primary focus of the campaign – and the primary destination of the tax revenues – was the criminal justice system, not transportation. The loss does, however, mean that the county will cut its contribution to the transit system in half, in order to have more money to pay for prisons.

Here are a few we didn’t mention Tuesday:

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You might still be recuperating from your post-election hangover, but automotive executives are celebrating victory after victory. Auto industry lobbyists are predicting a good couple of years, according to a report by Automotive News.

Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, left, at a press event with local auto dealers last year. Image: Plain Dealer

They’re betting the Republican majority in the House will “investigate, slow and try to block Obama administration initiatives that it considers detrimental to the auto industry” – initiatives like “safety legislation, the new consumer finance agency’s regulations, fuel economy proposals and the EPA’s new ethanol standard.”

Auto industry lobbyists are looking forward to two years of gridlock. They think their bargaining power is now strong enough to get them a seat at the negotiating table on things like safety legislation, resulting, they hope, in smaller penalties for violators. They’re worried about new standards for brake-override systems and black-box crash data recorders. According to Automotive News:

The auto safety bill crafted in the wake of Toyota’s unintended-acceleration problems is going nowhere as long as Republicans control the House, predicted Dave McCurdy, CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

They’re also glad Republicans will rule as the House oversees the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency chief, Elizabeth Warren. Oh, and “the EPA’s decision last month to let refiners blend as much as 15 percent ethanol into gasoline, up from the current 10 percent” – they’re looking forward to letting House Republicans take care of that one too. Indeed, the auto industry has reason to believe it will have access to politicians in this Congressional session – after all, they bought it.

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Dear Governor-Elect Kasich,

Congrats on your victory in the Ohio governor’s race this week. You’ve got a tough job on your hands and I don’t envy you, taking the reins in a state with an $8 billion budget deficit and a 10 percent unemployment rate. I didn’t vote for you, but I considered it. Even so, I think I join the vast majority of Ohio residents when I wish you tremendous success.

Even though you only won election a few days ago, I hope you don’t mind, I have a little bone to pick with you. I was more than a little dismayed to hear that in your post-election victory speech, you said Ohio’s plan to connect Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati via passenger rail was “dead,” and that “passenger rail is not in Ohio’s future.”

Kasich campaigning in the Cleveland suburbs. Photo: 19 Action News

Forgive my confusion, but I fail to see how returning $400 million in federal money is the right decision for a state with our record on unemployment. According to the Ohio Department of Transportation, that infusion of cash would have immediately created 255 jobs. The U.S. Department of Commerce suggested it would result in a total of 8,000 spin-off jobs.

But, of course, the 3C Corridor wasn’t just about creating jobs; it was mainly about moving people. Now, I understand some people have complained that the plan was for conventional-speed, as opposed to high-speed, rail. Some skeptics have wondered whether Ohioans would be willing to sacrifice the convenience of their private automobiles for a mode that was likely to take longer and force them to operate on a fixed schedule.

I feel compelled to point out, however, that this statement makes a number of assumptions that do not necessarily represent the perspective of the state as a whole. For example, are you aware that at the time of the latest census, 374,000 Ohio households did not have a private vehicle available to them? This represents more than eight percent of the state’s households.

It frustrates me when I hear people make unqualified statements such as “no one will ride it” because I, for one, would ride it. See, I own a car but prefer other modes of transportation. I like to bike and take public transit. It saves me money and it makes me feel like I’m doing my part to preserve the environment.

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Rep. Jim Oberstar said goodbye today after 36 years in the House, during which he helped pioneer federal support for biking and walking. “I go in peace of mind and heart, but with sadness,” he said in his concession speech.

Oberstar gives his farewell speech. Photo: MPR

He said he wouldn’t change or take back any of his votes for transportation, especially improvements in his own district. He refused to apologize for the stimulus, saying the infrastructure it paid for will be there for a hundred years.

Meanwhile, John Mica, the top Republican on the Transportation Committee – and its presumptive next chair – said in a statement:

If selected by my peers to chair the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the next Congress, my primary focus will be improving employment and expanding economic opportunities, doing more with less, cutting red tape and removing impediments to creating jobs, speeding up the process by which infrastructure projects are approved, and freeing up any infrastructure funding that’s been sitting idle.

Among my top legislative priorities will be passing a long-term federal highways and transit reauthorization… I will also focus on major initiatives to find ways within the Committee’s jurisdiction to save taxpayer dollars. That includes better management and utilization of federal assets, including real property, and more efficient, cost effective passenger rail transportation, including a better directed high-speed rail program.

Some reformers saw visions of high speed rail go down the toilet with the flip in Congressional power. Mica seems to indicate otherwise. Certainly, he’ll be under pressure from his party – which reads yesterday’s victory as a mandate for smaller government – to cut spending. But Mica supported Oberstar’s $500 billion transportation bill, and he recognizes the benefits of transit. He’ll need solid backup from advocates — speaking with a fiscal-conservative message — to convince his colleagues that infrastructure investment makes economic sense.

It looks like he’s prepared to try.

Ready for some good news? Voters around the country got to decide on 29 transportation-related ballot initiatives yesterday. According to an analysis by the Center for Transportation Excellence, transportation advocates and reformers won 73 percent of them. If you add in other initiatives that passed earlier this year, the victory rate jumps to 77 percent.

Voters in Michigan's Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties overwhelmingly approved a property tax renewal to fund local bus service in their communities. Photo: CBS

“In the midst of an election framed as a revolt against the size of government and the scope of taxes and spending, we not only saw transportation investment measures meet the 10 year success rate average but exceed it,” said Jason Jordan, executive director of the Center for Transportation Excellence. “In all cases, there was a direct impact on taxpayers. And about 75 percent of the time we saw voters standing up and saying yes, we’re willing to pay for investment in our transportation infrastructure.”

Many of the initiatives were non-binding referenda, but they set the stage for concrete action later.

In five California counties, people voted for new automobile registration fees to pay for transportation improvements. Historically, sales taxes and property taxes (as well as the gas tax) have been the primary sources of revenue for these investments. California is opening up a whole new revenue stream.

California also adopted Prop 22, which bans state raids on transportation funds, and rejected Prop 23, which would have delayed implementation of the state’s new emissions standards until unemployment is reduced.

The 29 ballot measures decided last night aren’t the only ones this year. Back in April, St. Louis voters gave the green light to a half-cent sales tax increase to fund mass transit – the biggest tax increase any jurisdiction voted to give itself this year. It had failed in November 2008 but with some re-tooling and organizing, it got 63 percent of the vote in the spring.

David Goldberg, communications director of Transportation for America, agrees that the ballot measures were a reason to “take heart.”

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The current governors map, before yesterday's winners are seated. Several blue states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, will turn red. California will flip from red to blue.

The biggest news from last night, of course, is that the GOP won control of the House of Representatives. That means Republicans now control all the House committees, and Ohio’s John Boehner — a believer in wider highways — will wield the Speaker’s gavel. The Democrats hung on to the Senate, though, and pundits are forecasting two years of gridlock.

Streetsblog has mainly been profiling races for governor where transportation issues had a high profile. Here are some results with big implications for smart growth and sustainable transportation.

Governor Results

California: Jerry Brown (D) 54 percent – Meg Whitman (R) 41 percent
Whitman would have said no to high speed rail, Brown has a record of curbing sprawl and fighting highway expansion.

Colorado: John Hickenlooper (D) 50 percent – Tom Tancredo (AMC) 37 percent – Dan Maes (R) 11 percent
The GOP hangs on to major party status by a hair after bike-paranoid Maes costs them the election. Hickenlooper is a bike and transit advocate who really gets it.

Florida: Rick Scott (R) 49 percent – Alex Sink (D) 48 percent
Scott has said he’ll kill high speed rail, giving back federal dollars. Sink is a transit supporter who said bike infrastructure could improve street safety.

Georgia: Nathan Deal (R) 53 percent – Roy Barnes (D) 43 percent
Barnes has environmental concerns about a highway expansion project Deal supports. Barnes wanted to “unclog Atlanta” through transit.

Maryland: Martin O’Malley (D) 56 percent – Bob Ehrlich (R) 42 percent
Incumbent O’Malley will move forward with building a light-rail Purple Line expansion of the D.C. Metro. Ehrlich said he favored bus rapid transit but some thought he was just trying to cause delays.

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This is the final installment of our series on high-stakes governor’s races. We hope you’ll be watching along with us tonight as the results come in for the races we’ve followed in Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, California, Texas, Maryland, Colorado, and Tennessee. Now, we turn to Georgia.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Georgians two weeks ago, “If Georgia wants a rail line and wants to be connected to high-speed intercity rail, you can make it happen.” But he warned that they’ll need leadership from the governor’s office.

Separated at birth? The candidates for GA governor may look like identical twins, but they have different priorities for transportation. Image: TPM

“Whoever gets elected governor will be getting a phone call from me,’” LaHood said. He wants to know if Georgia’s going to be “in the mix” on high speed rail. “They should be. They’re an important region of the country.”

Today, Georgia decides who will be in the governor’s mansion to answer LaHood’s phone call. It’s a time of transportation innovation in the state. Atlanta was recently awarded a TIGER II grant to build a streetcar line, and the federal government topped that off with $4.1 million for a multistate plan for high speed rail between Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina. But the state of Georgia has many unmet transportation needs, and the two men facing off in today’s election each have their own ideas about how to proceed.

Democrat Roy Barnes declares on his campaign website, “The days of only big road projects are gone.” In a section called “Unclog Atlanta,” he says:

Instead of simply pouring more concrete, we must implement a mass transit plan that addresses Metro Atlanta’s tremendous population growth and unique problems. MARTA is convenient for Atlantans who want to travel short distances within the city, but it is completely unusable for suburban and exurban commuters. An elevated light-rail system running over metro Atlanta’s interstates, rail lines, and existing rights-of-way would move commuters to outlying suburbs more efficiently, unclog our interstates, and reduce our reliance on foreign oil, all while putting Georgians back to work.

Republican Nathan Deal is giving up his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for a chance to replace Sonny Perdue as governor. In Congress, he voted against federal funding subsidies for Amtrak and an increase in emissions standards.

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