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.

Similarly suspect, in the eyes of Tea Party activists, are “all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy,” as the Times reported on Saturday. “Government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space [is seen] as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.” Ditto, bike lanes. And, you better believe, congestion pricing or any form of traffic pricing.

What’s at work here, according to the writer (and New Yorker) Dan Lazare, is the “Jeffersonian ideology that assumed that individual actions were autonomous unless proven otherwise. Whether a motorist chose to drive or not to drive,” Lazare wrote in his 2000 classic, America’s Undeclared War: What’s Killing Our Cities and How You Can Stop It, “was nobody’s business but his own; any suggestion to the contrary was positively un-American.”

The standard counterweight to the agrarian Jeffersonian model is the Hamiltonian sovereign nation-state drawing strength from cities built on manufacturing and trade. Lazare plumbed this duality in America’s Undeclared War, but he also broke new ground by contrasting Jeffersonianism to the “theory of externalities” that emerged in the early 20^th Century, which emphasized “the public dimension of individual acts” that consumed resources or otherwise damaged the commons:

Rather than regarding individual acts as private unless proven otherwise, the growing volume of external costs suggested that they had to be regarded as public acts — unless, that is, affirmative action was taken to mitigate the social consequences. To drive or not to drive, in other words, was no longer an individual decision but a social question because so many people were affected besides the motorist himself.

A great many people are affected by an individual’s decision to drive in NYC. I have shown elsewhere that a single car round-trip into the Manhattan Central Business District generates external costs on the order of a hundred dollars, just in terms of other road users’ lost time. Although the Bloomberg administration didn’t use this meme in its 2007-2008 push for congestion pricing, it is the essential motivating idea behind tolling vehicles entering the CBD. As I wrote on Reuters last month, any New York-area driver “is cognizant of the time he will expend being slowed by other cars, but not of the far greater delays he will impose on them.” A congestion toll helps close that feedback loop.

Tea Partiers are having none of that, of course, and Dan Lazare helps us make sense of their antipathy to treating driving — not to mention land use, transit provision, and climate change — as a social question rather than the sole province of individuals. To paraphrase America’s Undeclared War, “Where the externalities analysis highlights the tyranny that a mass of atomized individuals imposes on society, adherents of Jefferson worry about the tyranny imposed by society on the individual.”

In short, congestion pricing’s benefits be damned, you’ll still have to pry the car keys out of my cold dead hand.

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.

But Romney did echo the mainstream GOP attack on public rail subsidies, which help maintain money-losing lines (through conservative, Republican-voting, rural country) that the government mandates it to run as a public service. In so doing, Romney ignores Amtrak’s record ridership and the enormous success of its Northeast Corridor service, which reduces air pollution and traffic congestion along the country’s most heavily-traveled corridor. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to hear any Republican candidate say roads ought to pay for themselves too. (Incentive: The first one who does gets a late Streetsie award for uncommon bravery.)

Though Romney’s win last night was anemic and potentially embarrassing, considering the fact that he nearly lost against someone who until very recently was destined for also-ran status, he’s positioned to clean up next week in New Hampshire and run a more consistent nationwide campaign than any of his opponents.

If this speech illustrates Romney’s true view on public transportation — that it has to pay for itself — advocates have a lot of work to do in educating him before he goes head-to-head with Obama for the White House.

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!)

Not much to go on, but fear not. Though it may not feel like it, we are only at the beginning of the primary process, so there should be plenty of time for the candidates to make their views known.

The New Hampshire primary is January 10. Campaigning heavily there is Jon Huntsman, who touted his infrastructure record en route to winning two gubernatorial terms in Utah.

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:

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.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the industry spent $9.3 million on campaign contributions in 2009-2010, including spending by individuals and PACs. Sixty-nine percent of the money went to Republicans. They got pretty good bang for their buck, too: of the 20 candidates they gave the most money to, 15 won. And of the five that didn’t, well, even most of those went okay for the industry.

For example, automakers and dealers gave $112,100 to Charlie Crist’s failed campaign for Senate in Florida. But they also gave $45,250 to the man who defeated him, Marco Rubio.

And sure, they gave a chunk of change to Tom Ganley, who first opposed Rob Portman in the GOP Ohio Senate primary and then dropped out of that race to try (unsuccessfully) to unseat Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH). Ganley runs the largest automotive group in Ohio and largely self-financed his campaign. He may have lost, but both of the candidates that beat him were also automotive industry victories.

Sutton ranks number 16 in auto industry favorites in the House, bringing in almost $31,000 this year in contributions from the industry. And Senator-elect Rob Portman was the number one recipient of car money, raking in $163,275. Maybe that was the deciding factor in Portman’s stunning come-from-behind victory – Portman went from trailing his Democratic opponent after the primary to an 18-point win in November.

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.

But living in Ohio makes that very hard because of the way our infrastructure has been developed. For example, I ride my bike three miles to and from work every day. Though my commute takes me through the heart of downtown Cleveland, on the way I encounter no dedicated bike lanes — with the exception of one bridge in which the bike lane ends without warning in the middle.

Ohio’s current infrastructure, as convenient as it may be for those who just love going everywhere by private car, isn’t serving people like me very well. Nor is it serving the hundreds of thousands of households who lack access to private automobiles.

Now, it’s hard for me to say how many people across the state feel the same way I do. But I’m willing to bet there are quite a few. The thing is, we pay taxes too. Why should we subsidize other people’s transportation preferences while ours are systematically ignored? Furthermore, why should hundreds of thousands of car-free households across the state, whose incomes are no doubt lower than the general population, do the same?

Another complaint one hears about the rail system is that it wouldn’t be self-supporting and would have to be subsidized by the state. To this, I say: show me a transportation mode that doesn’t require public subsidy. Certainly not private automobiles, which require enormous public expenditures on roads and parking, far above and beyond what drivers themselves contribute.

I love Ohio and I’ve lived here most of my life. My family lives here and I like seeing them regularly. Overall, it’s a pretty nice place to live, I’d say. But more and more, lately, I’m frustrated by the direction the state is taking.

A Columbus cityscape, cluttered by cars. Photo: Richard Webner's Blog

While other states are competing to lay the most bike lanes or expand transportation options beyond driving, Ohio, as demonstrated by your campaign against 3C, seems to delight in pursuing outdated strategies of questionable value in a future of energy uncertainty. I worry, in short, that Ohio is becoming less competitive, falling farther behind.

It makes me question my future in this state. I read today that fewer young people across the nation are choosing to get driver’s licenses and purchase cars. This is part of a national trend away from car-based lifestyles. I consider myself a part of this movement. But the message I am getting from the state of Ohio is that there’s no room for people like me here.

Sometimes I think about my friends who have moved on from Ohio to areas with more sophisticated transit networks: Washington, New York, Portland. And sometimes I feel foolish for not having joined them.

So, although it seems like your mind is made up on this issue, I still feel compelled to ask you: Please don’t kill 3C rail in Ohio. I was planning to use it to visit my parents in Columbus and, later, if the corridor were to expand as seemed likely, Toledo. It would have made it possible for me to get rid of my car.

I’ve done the right thing. I’ve paid my taxes. I’ve tried to help contribute to the state’s future prosperity. When will my needs be considered? Or do I have to move to another state for that?

Respectfully,

Angie Schmitt, Cleveland resident

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.

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.”

“They allocated lots of money for upkeep of roads, some for transit, a good chunk for walking and biking,” Goldberg said. “That’s our formula. That’s our ‘ask’, right there. And that’s been popular across the board.”

A notable disappointment: Hillsborough County, Florida voted down a measure to levy a one-cent sales tax to pay for transportation. Three-quarters of the revenue would have gone to public transportation. “The polling had it neck-and-neck,” said Jordan of CFTE. But the final numbers weren’t even close. It lost 42 to 58.

But in this “taxophobic” climate, advocates had braced for far more losses. The results show that people are willing to pay for investments they find strategic. Jordan says it even bodes well for the upcoming debate on the transportation bill. “There’s this fear of voter wrath when you talk about any financing stream for the bill,” Jordan said. “This shows that voters are ahead of the politicians on this count.”

He said it also shows that localities are doing their share – “and then some” – and he hopes the feds and the states will see the sacrifices they’re making and come through with the rest of the needed funding.

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.

Ohio: John Kasich (R) 49 percent – Ted Strickland (D) 47 percent
The winner says high speed rail is the dumbest idea he’s ever heard. Incumbent Strickland has tried to green the industrial state.

Tennessee: Bill Haslam (R) 65 percent – Mike McWherter (D) 33 percent
Haslam has gained some praise for his bike policy but he’s not friendly to transit, which McWherter supports.

Texas: Rick Perry (R) 55 percent – Bill White (D) 42 percent
Will the Trans-Texas Corridor mega-project go through? It’s likely, now that Perry won an unprecedented third term.

Wisconsin: Rick Scott (R) 52 percent – Tom Barrett (D) 47 percent
Another race where the Republican pledged to kill high speed rail projects underway. Barrett promoted transit as a way to reduce wear and tear on highways.

House Races

Minnesota: Chip Cravaack (R) 48 percent – Jim Oberstar 47 percent
This is a huge blow to shifting away from the transportation status quo. Oberstar, the chair of the Transportation Committee and architect of the reauthorization bill, was a strong ally of transportation reformers.

Oregon: Peter DeFazio (D) 54 percent – Art Robinson (R) 45 percent
After a closer-than-expected contest, transit supporter DeFazio stays to fight another day.

Senate Races

California: Barbara Boxer (D) 52 percent – Carly Fiorina (R) 42 percent
The Environment and Public Works Committee chair had the fight of her political life against the Hewlett Packard exec, but she’ll stick around. And with the Democrats keeping control of the Senate, EPW will remain under her leadership.

Stay tuned… later today we’ll be taking a look at how the 29 transportation-related ballot initiatives fared.

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.

Barnes and Deal both support the recent passage of a bill allowing jurisdictions to raise the sales tax to help pay for transportation projects, including transit. Lee Biola of the Atlanta-based Citizens for Progressive Transit says the flaw in that new tax law is that it only allows a region to raise the tax for 10 years, while in order to get federal matching funds, you need to show that you have a source of operating funds for at least 20 years from the date the project begins running, meaning you really need about 30 years of revenue.

Neither support a hike in the gas tax, despite the fact that Georgia’s is one of the lowest in the nation and was lowered by 4 cents two years ago. They both favor dedicating all gas tax revenue to transportation – currently, a portion of it goes to the general fund. Currently, the gas tax is for roads and bridges only – not transit.

A big issue for both candidates is the deepening of the Savannah River to accommodate the larger ships that will be coming up from Panama once the canal widening there is finished in 2014. But they differ on how to get goods upstate from the port. Deal is in favor of a new interstate highway linking Savannah to Augusta and all the way up to Knoxville, Tennessee. Barnes is concerned about the environmental impact on the mountains of North Georgia.

Barnes, who served as governor from 1999 to 2003, pushed new highway construction but also started a new commuter bus service from the suburbs. Since then, he’s been hoping for an expansion of passenger rail.

And he’s got his sights set on not just commuter rail, but high speed. He says both would “encourage growth, tourism and economic opportunity.”

Deal is in favor of rail but doesn’t want to commit state money until the local governments get on board.

The numbers, you ask: what do the numbers say? All recent polls show Deal with a single-digit lead over Barnes, but outside the margin of error.

NOTE: Biola of CfPT said one of their top priorities for today is the passage of a nonbinding ballot referendum in Clayton County. It would show residents’ desire to raise their sales tax to pay for inclusion in the MARTA system. The county lost its bus service earlier this year, and the sales tax increase would pay not only to get the buses running again, but to extend the commuter rail as well. Barnes is in favor of the rail extension.

Oberstar, right, and DeFazio share a ride in a pedi-cab. Willamette River Bridge Project

As committee chair, Oberstar has been a strong advocate for transit investment and livability reforms. He’s also the architect and chief proponent of the six-year $500 billion transportation bill that’s been stalled in the House since last summer.

Oberstar has easily won 17 consecutive elections, but the 18th is proving to be a little sticky. The LA Times reports:

[R]ecently, American Crossroads, an independent group affiliated with GOP strategist Karl Rove, started running spots on the Duluth stations that blanket the area. A group formed by Democrat-turned-Republican Dick Morris also launched a spot against Oberstar.

Then a third group called 60 Plus, which bills itself as a conservative alternative to AARP, began broadcasting $100,000 worth of ads saying it was time for the 76-year-old incumbent to retire.

Now, Oberstar’s seat is in play.

According to polling by SurveyUSA, he’s currently just one point ahead of challenger Chip Cravaack, within the margin of error. And he’s not the only champion having to fight harder than usual to retain his seat.

It’s being portrayed as a testament to the power of anti-incumbent sentiment this year that Peter DeFazio (D-OR) finds himself in a surprisingly close race against Republican Art Robinson. DeFazio, as chair of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, has strongly advocated for including livability measures in the transportation bill.

He won his last race with 82 percent, and no independent polls were even commissioned this time around — his chances were considered that good. Conservative money has helped Robinson close the funding gap, though. And the only poll that’s been conducted — admittedly, by a Republican polling firm — shows DeFazio just six points ahead. That’s a lot closer than he expected this race to be.

Heading to the polls at the Elijah Stroud middle school in Brooklyn.

How are those ballot scanners working today, NYC?

Leave your forecasts, analysis, hopes and fears in the comments. My contribution: I predict the Dems will not sweep the statewide races.

The most high-profile election in Florida is the three-ring circus of a Senate race, with Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist trailing badly in the polls against handsome Tea Partier Marco Rubio (who, by the way, has some unfortunate ideas about transportation), and Democrat Kendrick Meek bringing up the rear.

Republican Rick Scott isn't so sure about transit or high speed rail. Democrat Alex Sink has her mind made up. Image: News 13

But let’s turn our attention to another Florida race that will also have big repercussions for transit and safe streets – and where the outcome tomorrow is anybody’s guess.

I’m talking about the contest for governor between Democrat Alex Sink and Republican Rick Scott, who are in a dead heat heading toward Election Day. At stake? The federal government’s second biggest investment in high speed rail.

In recent days, Scott has softened his opposition to the proposed rail line connecting Orlando to Tampa, now saying he just wants to know the final costs. But as recently as last week, he said in a debate that he’d withhold any state money required for the project. The state has already received $1.25 billion from the feds but will need to kick in at least that much to get it done.

Sink, the state’s chief financial officer, supports the rail line. It’s part of her plan to change Florida’s status as, in her words, a “super donor state” that gets back 86 cents for every dollar Florida sends to the federal government in gas taxes. She makes clear that some of that should be for transit. She’s also a proponent of freight rail, and is considering offering tax incentives for businesses that ship by rail instead of trucks.

The state is working on commuter rail lines, which the Florida Public Transportation Association deems to be “as important, if not more important, to the economy of Florida as the sexy high speed rail project.” The SunRail line, already with a dedicated funding source and established right-of-way, will follow existing freight tracks in Central Florida. And TriRail, which already runs 50 trains a day in South Florida, recently got a boost from the governor.

“Charlie Crist called a special session to ensure that SunRail secured a source of funding independent of the whims of FDOT,” said Tony Garcia, editor of TransitMiami. The secured funding comes in the form of a $2 charge on rental cars, which, in a tourist state like Florida, is significant.

On SunRail, Sink hits Scott where it hurts. She accuses the hospital-chain executive of ignoring the needs of “Orlando Health, Florida Hospital and other businesses along the 61-mile line, who are counting on SunRail and its 17 stations to spawn good jobs, housing opportunities and lots of private-sector investment.”

Funds for the Tampa-to-Orlando line could be returned to the feds if Scott wins.

When AAA asked both candidates what they would do to boost highway safety, Scott said he’d build more highways (and fund maintenance and law enforcement). Sink’s response was a little more forward-thinking. She said she’d “seek to expand the percentage of federal safety funds that FDOT spends on bicycle and pedestrian safety programs.”

She also said she’d have FDOT study whether new road projects actually improved safety “over the ones they replaced.”

Her campaign website has a special section on transportation, where she pledges to “develop innovative projects that address congestion, reduce emissions and create more livable communities.” She even wants a sort of statewide TIGER program to give competitive grants for transportation projects.

Sink and Scott both pledge to veto the kind of raids that the Transportation Trust Fund that the Florida legislature tried to pull off last year, brought to a halt, rather heroically, by Governor Crist (yes, the same Crist that gave up the governor’s mansion to, in all likelihood, go down in humiliating defeat to Republican Rubio).

Garcia of TransitMiami says Scott will disable Florida’s protections against sprawl, while Sink will strengthen them. He says a lot of the power over those issues rests in the Department of Community Affairs and FDOT, and he hopes Alex Sink is the one controlling those agencies for the next four years.

Another big issue for Florida is oil drilling. Scott thought the post-spill ban on drilling was “naïve” and a “knee-jerk reaction.” Meanwhile, Sink proposed a constitutional amendment to ban offshore oil drilling in Florida waters.

This is one of the closest races this year, and one of the most significant for transportation. A lot is riding on how Floridians vote tomorrow.

Repealing the MTA payroll tax is one of the top priorities of Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, who may be poised to regain control of his chamber. Image via his website.

With the MTA at least $9 billion short on funding for its five-year capital plan, New Yorkers who ride buses and subways should be counting on legislators to secure a new revenue stream for transit. But after tomorrow’s elections, the first transit fight in Albany may not be over new revenue at all. Repealing the payroll mobility tax, passed along strict party lines as part of the 2009 MTA funding package, is a top priority for many suburban State Senate candidates, especially Republicans.

Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos is a fierce opponent of the payroll tax and could gain control of his chamber if the GOP picks up just two additional seats. Gubernatorial favorite Andrew Cuomo hasn’t had anything good to say about the payroll tax either. That means over $1.1 billion a year in transit funding is potentially on the chopping block.

Perhaps the fiercest fight over the payroll tax is happening in southern Suffolk County, where incumbent Brian X. Foley is defending his seat against Republican Lee Zeldin. Zeldin has made the payroll tax perhaps the number one issue in the campaign, going so far as to call his opponent “Brian ‘MTA Tax’ Foley” in press releases on subjects unconnected to transit or tax policy.

Zeldin has called for eliminating the payroll tax. “Entities paying the tax have been forced to lay off employees, cut payroll and watch their profits shrink,” says Zeldin’s campaign website. “We must also reform the MTA’s pattern of wasteful spending and mismanagement instead of supporting bailouts like the Foley Payroll Tax.”

Foley, in contrast, is pushing a compromise where the payroll tax is reduced by one-third in Nassau and Westchester Counties and by two-thirds in the rest of the MTA service region [PDF]. “Mr. Foley doesn’t like the tax and is working to make it less burdensome to businesses,” his campaign manager told the Wall Street Journal. “It was either that or let them raise fares 35 or 40%, cut service dramatically.”

Foley’s grudging support for the payroll tax is mirrored by a number of incumbent Democratic senators, all of whom voted for the MTA rescue package. In Westchester County, Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer said on a radio show that she “didn’t support it nor do I know anyone who likes this tax.”

A spokesperson later clarified Oppenheimer’s position, saying, ” In 2009 the Senate was presented with only one proposal to support the MTA at a time of financial crisis and proposed draconian fare increases. At the time it passed the Senator indicated her preference for other revenue sources such as tolls on the East River bridges.” The spokesperson said that Oppenheimer supports the repeal of the payroll tax.

Oppenheimer’s opponent, Bob Cohen, puts “a repeal of the outrageous MTA payroll tax” as part of his platform on his website. In an interview with a Scarsdale website, Cohen said, “The MTA is a huge bureaucracy and a top-heavy organization with many six figure salaries. The legislature should not have taken away from our children’s education because this organization can’t get its act together.”

The payroll mobility tax was instituted after the recession caused MTA revenues to plummet, and now makes up a significant share of dedicated transit funding. Image: Tom DiNapoli.

The Democrats don’t always offer even that kind of qualified support for transit financing, however. In the 40th Senate District, which stretches from Westchester through Putnam County and into Dutchess County, both candidates are unambiguously opposed to the payroll tax. “This MTA payroll tax is the final nail in the coffin of a state that is trending vociferously into a downward spiral,” said Assembly Member Greg Ball, the Republican and self-avowed Tea Partier running for the seat. “Sheldon Silver and his legislative cronies are not leaders, they are Kamikaze pilots intent on sinking with the ship.”

Ball’s opponent, Mike Kaplowitz, puts it less colorfully, but the meaning is the same. “Mike will create jobs by lowering taxes on businesses and repealing the MTA tax,” his website proclaims. Kaplowitz has also expressed interest in swapping the payroll tax for East River bridge tolls.

One suburban Democrat in a competitive race who hasn’t run from his payroll tax vote is northern Nassau County’s Craig Johnson. In a debate with his opponent, Jack Martins, Johnson said “nobody likes bailouts but the fact is is that we were facing massive fare hikes in order to prevent the bailout and that just wasn’t feasible.” He also blamed past legislatures for forcing the MTA to rack up the debt that is currently dragging down the agency.

In contrast, Martins has called to repeal the tax. “Craig Johnson added insult to injury as he cast the deciding vote to impose an onerous MTA payroll tax on all Nassau County businesses, schools and charities,” read one e-mail that Martin sent out to his supporters. “Together, we cough up another $100 million to keep the dysfunctional and gluttonous MTA afloat — whether we ride or not.”

Inside New York City limits, the payroll tax hasn’t emerged as a central issue in the same way as in the outlying counties. It doesn’t seem to have come up on the record in the heated race between incumbent Queens Republican Frank Padavan, who voted against the MTA rescue, and former City Council member Tony Avella.

Further south in Queens, Anthony Como has raised the issue in his campaign against incumbent Democrat Joseph Addabbo, although it hasn’t been a chief concern of his. Como has promised to repeal the payroll tax and complains on his website that the legislature has provided “no 5-year highway, road and bridge plan – a key economic development initiative for Upstate and Long Island – while approving over $23.8B in new funding for the MTA.” Addabbo seems to have been silent on the payroll tax since voting for it in 2009.

Of course, in three-men-in-a-room Albany, the positions of the candidates in all these competitive races can be less important than those of the party leaders. For example, Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos has “Repealing MTA Tax” as one of his four basic positions on the front of his campaign website. (Skelos is also a long-time opponent of congestion pricing.) If his party takes over the State Senate and he continues to make repeal a top priority, he might be able to force the issue.

Andrew Cuomo, the man likely to wield the veto pen, is also on record saying that we need to “revisit” the payroll tax. Expect this to be a top battle in Albany next year.

“I’m Scott Walker. And if I’m elected as your next governor, we’ll stop this train.”

GOP's Scott Walker wants to knock out HSR in Wisconsin. Image: TPM

That’s the rhetoric from Wisconsin’s Republican gubernatorial hopeful. He calls the high-speed rail line planned to link Madison and Milwaukee a “boondoggle,” estimated to cost Wisconsin $7 million to $10 million dollars a year in operating costs. Stopping the rail line – which is eventually meant to link Chicago to Minneapolis – would mean sending $810 million in federal rail construction funds back to Washington. Walker says President Obama’s “radical environmental agenda” is killing jobs. [PDF]

As much as $100 million could already have been spent on the rail line by the time Walker would take office. But he says that won’t stop him from putting the brakes on it. He’s suggested using the money for other transportation projects, but the federal grant is earmarked for rail. If Wisconsin doesn’t want it, some other state will claim it.

Walker has years of experience fighting transit. As Milwaukee County Executive, he’s tried to cut funding for buses and by refusing to allocate more funding to transit, he forced a choice between service cuts and fare hikes.

Democrat Tom Barrett would keep the trains rolling. Image: Cap Times

His Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, supports the rail project as part of his broader promotion of public transportation. Barrett has a 98 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters. He’s pushed for clean sources of energy and worked to convert the city’s vehicle fleet to hybrid and biodiesel cars.

Wisconsin’s transportation budget comes from gas taxes and vehicle registration fees. It’s frequently been raided – to the tune of $1.3 billion over the last eight years – to pay for unrelated projects. Meanwhile, the state has documented almost $700 million in annual unmet transportation needs.

Both candidates are against the raids, and Republican Walker even goes so far as to support a constitutional amendment banning such behavior. But the candidates’ proposed solutions to the crumbling infrastructure are worlds apart. Walker’s a roads-and-bridges guy. Barrett says increasing transit use will take the burden off roads and reduce wear and tear on highways.

Walker has also suggested re-routing sales tax revenue from new vehicle purchases to the transportation fund. That could add up to about half a billion dollars. (However, he wants to repeal the corporate income tax, which brings in about $1.6 billion every two years. How that will help balance the budget is anybody’s guess.)

He’s also in favor of tolled express lanes on highways but doesn’t want to install tolls that everyone would have to pay. Barrett is against all tolling.

Walker was one of two GOP gubernatorial candidates singled out by U.S. DOT chief Ray LaHood recently for threatening to put the kibosh on the high speed rail plans. The other one, former congressman John Kasich, is running for office a few states over, in Ohio.

“It’s hard to imagine what would have happened to states like Ohio and Wisconsin if their leaders had decided they didn’t want to be connected to the rest of the country [when the Interstate system was being built under President Eisenhower],” LaHood said.

Indeed, the push for better rail in Ohio faces similar prospects to the project in Wisconsin. Kasich says the 3-C line (connecting Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati – and, oh yes, Dayton) is “one of the dumbest ideas” he’s ever heard. Democratic Governor Ted Strickland, running for re-election, has worked hard to get $400 million in federal stimulus funds for it.

Strickland, left, and Kasich share an awkward handshake before a debate. Image: Columbus Dispatch

Kasich does make one good point when he says the line would be far from “high speed.” It’s expected to average just 39 mph on the 258-mile route, counting stops. Officials say they think they can push it up to 45-55 mph, but that’s still not impressive to people who go 70 on the highway.

According to Jonathan Hiskes at Grist, the problem might have something to do with the fact that Ohio has never had a public transportation system that was particularly useful to its residents, so they might have a hard time imagining what one might look like. After all, noted Hiskes, “it’s the seventh most populous state, but it ranks 40th in transit spending.” Recent service cuts in Cleveland will only drag the state down more.

Kasich has waxed poetic about his environmental commitment, saying in 1999, “Stewardship of the environment is nothing less than a moral obligation — because God made it and gave it to us to properly manage. It will be part of the bequest we make to our children and grandchildren.”

Nice rhetoric, but Strickland has actually walked the walk, trying to green an industrial state with wind and solar energy and efficiency measures.

If the wind keeps blowing the way it’s blowing, Tuesday will be a bad day for the rail dreams of Midwestern Democrats and transit advocates. According to the most recent polling, in Ohio, Kasich leads Strickland by a six percent margin (with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.) And in Wisconsin, Scott “No Train” Walker leads Tom Barrett 52 to 42.

Image: Rails to Trails Conservancy.

The outcome of New York’s Congressional races on Tuesday may end up determining federal transportation policy for years to come.

The state has a number of very close House races, from the tip of Long Island to the Canadian border, and those could be the difference between a Democratic or a Republican majority. The unparalleled importance of transit to New York state also means that its delegation shoulders a critical responsibility to advance progressive federal transportation policy. The transportation reauthorization bill will be dramatically affected by who’s representing New York in Congress next year and what they choose to fight for.

That’s why the survey of House candidates by the New York State Transportation Equity Alliance is so valuable. NYSTEA just released the survey results, putting candidates on the record with their positions on transportation policy.

To read about the candidates’ top priorities for the transportation bill, check out Mobilizing the Region, which has compiled all of them. Here are a few answers that leaped out at us:

• Tim Bishop, who represents the eastern end of Long Island and is locked in one of the closest races in the state, showed he was willing to support sustainable transportation in no uncertain terms, without pandering towards drivers. “One of my top priorities for the Surface Transportation Authorization Act is to decrease the nation’s reliance on automobile travel and increase funding for transit improvements and operations,” he wrote. Bishop also said he was working on supporting smart growth policies in Congress.
• Louise Slaughter, the powerful Rules Committee chair from Rochester, gave some impressively detailed answers. In addition to pledging her support for transportation choices that boost public health, the environment, and mobility for all, she got into the weeds more than most respondents. “I especially support the creation the Office of Livability within the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) of DOT, which would establish a focal point within FHWA to advance environmentally sustainable modes of transportation, including transit, walking, and bicycling,” wrote Slaughter. She also argued for a transportation funding structure based on national performance objectives, a shift away from the current formulas that give money to states indiscriminately.
• And Brooklyn representative Yvette Clarke made sure to look at the transportation bill from multiple perspectives. She put forward three priorities: “1. Create jobs, especially green jobs 2. Focus on public transportation as much as highway expansion 3. Greater transparency and public participation in the transportation planning of communities.”

The rest of the answers, which you can see here, also revealed some interesting facts about New York transportation politics. For example, the 12 Democrats who replied all supported shifting federal transportation spending, which is currently divided 80-20 between highways and transit, toward public transportation. The two Republicans who answered (Michel Faulkner and Diana Muñiz, running long-shot campaigns against Charlie Rangel and Ed Towns, respectively) said they wouldn’t support such a shift.

And while all the Democrats supported increased transit funding, that didn’t mean they were all ready to stop pumping money into more auto infrastructure. Staten Island Congressman Michael McMahon, a vulnerable freshman, argued against prioritizing road repairs over new capacity. “Our States and localities should have the ability to use highway funds to maintain existing infrastructure and build new roadways or expand existing ones,” he wrote.

The transportation reauthorization isn’t the only way that Congress pushes for sustainable transportation. Albany representative Paul Tonko noted that he’s a co-sponsor of the Livable Communities Act, which would help fund local smart growth efforts, while Hudson Valley rep Nita Lowey, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, touted the money she’s been able to funnel toward sustainable planning, transit-oriented development, and walkable communities.

Several of the most powerful members of the delegation, however, didn’t fill out the NYSTEA survey, staying silent on transportation policy instead. Senior representatives of some of the most transit-dependent constituents in the country, including Jose Serrano, Ed Towns, Charlie Rangel, Nydia Velázquez, and Carolyn Maloney, were among the no-shows. Hopefully they’ll be speaking up in the halls of Congress even if they didn’t in this survey.

At the rally last night, Al Sharpton urged New Yorkers to unify in support of transit. Photo: Noah Kazis

At Union Square last night, more than a hundred people rallied for better transit in a kick-off event for the Rider Rebellion, a new campaign led by Transportation Alternatives.

With Reverend Al Sharpton headlining, the rally urged New Yorkers to “vote transit” on Tuesday and presented state politicos with the chance to make their case to transit riders reeling from service cuts and fare hikes. Working Families Party chair Dan Cantor was the most prominent political figure to take up the offer.

The Rider Rebellion signals the addition of more community organizing muscle to NYC transit advocacy, and a coordinated effort to make elected officials more accountable for their transit policy decisions. While opportunities to vote transit will be hard to come by this November, with neither major party candidate campaigning on a sensible public transportation platform, last night’s rally put elected officials on notice: Advocates are committed to making transit a voting issue.

“You better have the Rider Rebellion in mind, because we are coming for you,” warned Brodie Enoch, the campaign’s lead organizer. So far, the campaign has gathered more than 10,000 members (a number that continues to grow, said Enoch), who can be mobilized to pressure Albany to stand up for transit.

T.A. executive director Paul Steely White said that three anti-transit leaders had already been given the boot this election cycle: Pedro Espada, Hiram Monserrate, and Richard Brodsky. “We’re going to keep this going,” he promised.

Speakers also framed support for transit as an essential but missing piece of New York’s ostensible commitment to social justice. “Everyone has got slick commercials [but] not one commercial explains how we have a state that can find money to build stadiums and developments but can’t find money for people to ride to work and to school every day on mass transit,” said Sharpton.

“Right now there are nannies leaving the most privileged homes in the Upper East Side, Park Slope, on their way home to cook and see their own children,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, the executive director of the Sunset Park community organization UPROSE. “All of those people who are the heart of our community are on the train right now.”

Another heavy hitter in attendance was TWU Local 100 president John Samuelsen, whose union represents 38,000 transit workers. “New York City transit workers stand side-by-side with New York City transit riders,” he said, citing TWU efforts to block service cuts and the loss of student MetroCards. Samuelsen refrained from taking shots at MTA chief Jay Walder and urged riders to work with his union to lobby for more operating funds from both Washington and Albany. “Imagine how powerful our voices can be together.”

Photo: Noah Kazis

While every speaker urged New Yorkers to show their support for transit at the ballot box, it’s not clear how we’re actually meant to do that this year. At the top of the ballot, neither major party candidate has said much that transit advocates can cheer. In legislative races, few contests are competitive in the general election, especially in the Democratic stronghold of New York City.

So the Rider Rebellion invited every political party to make a case for why voting transit means voting for their candidate. Two parties, the WFP and the Greens, made an appearance.

The Green Party’s Mark Dunlea argued that his party was fielding the only truly pro-transit candidate for governor, Howie Hawkins. Hawkins has spoken in favor of congestion pricing and a stock transfer tax as revenue sources for the transit system.

The WFP’s Cantor blasted Carl Paladino, whose election he argued would result in even more service cuts. Andrew Cuomo, he said, would be somewhat better, specifically praising the AG’s call for direct gubernatorial control over the MTA. “It needs to be somebody’s problem,” said Cantor, but that Cuomo’s MTA plan is marred by the lack of a comprehensive plan to fund transit. A vote for Cuomo on the WFP line, he suggested, would “let [him] know you want him to be serious.”

While Cantor didn’t get into too much detail about the WFP’s specific transit goals or the strategy for winning them, he did say one very important sentence: “Drivers need to pay their fair share.”

After the rally, Cantor was similarly light on specifics when asked why transit riders should vote on the WFP line. He said the WFP has been a strong progressive voice for the last 12 years and directed Streetsblog readers to learn more on the party’s website.

He said the party is against Albany’s repeated raiding of MTA revenue streams (“Anything that reduces those funds is a problem”), but would not withhold its ballot line from legislators who vote for budgets that funnel dedicated transit taxes into the state’s general fund. “We’re not a single issue party. We’re not a litmus test party. That’s not what a real political party does.”

Glen Bottoms, pro-transit conservative.

Lately, in fact, it seems like public spending of any kind is anathema to the Tea Party-embracing GOP (though rising star Christie has been quite content to borrow and spend on highways). With Republicans poised to make major gains in Congress next month and the Obama administration planning a push for infrastructure investment, some sort of bipartisan arrangement will have to be reached to make progress on reforming the nation’s highway-centric transportation system.

The people behind a new transit-friendly think tank – The American Conservative Center for Public Transportation – think they can clear some space for a less polarized discussion of transportation policy. The center is the brainchild of conservative rail transit proponent William Lind and former Federal Transit Administration division chief Glen Bottoms, who aim to convince skeptical conservatives about the value of transit.

The center just rolled out its website on Friday, so we caught up with Bottoms to find out about the effort. (The transcript has been edited for clarity.)

Streetsblog: Why should conservatives support public transportation?

Glen Bottoms: We have three main reasons that we pitch to other conservatives. One is that we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Right now 90 percent of recoverable oil is controlled by foreign governments, most of which don’t wish us very well. Second is economic development. We’ve found that using streetcars in cities downtown spawns development. And third is that conservatives are traditional. Streetcars are a way to preserve neighborhoods by effectively promoting neighborhood cohesion and vitality.

SB: The stereotype is that conservatives hate transit. Is that true?

GB: If it’s not, most conservatives are doing a good job of hiding it. The Republican gubernatorial candidates in Wisconsin said if elected each would give the all the money for high-speed rail back and cancel the project. In Ohio, the Republican senatorial candidate and gubernatorial candidate both came out against high-speed rail. In Tampa, they’re going to hold a referendum in November on a sales tax to fund capital improvements to the region’s transit, and the opposition is coming from conservatives. It goes on and on…

SB: What is it about transit that seems to irk conservatives so much?

GB: At this point, any increase in taxes seems to bring people out of the woodwork. Take the gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993. Even a one cent increase in taxes has become a real anathema. Conservatives tend to look at cars and highways as freedom, as if they are a basic American good. And they think roads pay for themselves. Of course, if you read Bill Lind’s article “Rail Against the Machine”, you’ll see that the huge amount of money put into highways over the last 60 or 70 years has been one of the main reasons that public transportation has fallen on such hard times.

SB: What percent of highway funding is subsidized by the government?

GB: Fifty-eight percent of highway funding comes from user fees, including the gas tax, with the rest coming from general revenues. People like to say that mass transit is subsidized. That’s true, but so are highways. Before our massive public highway program, public transit was privately operated and maintained. When you subsidize one mode of transport against the other, it’s no mystery who wins. Free-market conservative adherence to highways rather puzzles us because it’s certainly not a free market outcome.

SB: How do conservatives respond when reminded how much highways are subsidized?

GB: It’s one those things that doesn’t correspond with their beliefs, so they just ignore or disparage it. If you read the material by Randal O’Toole and Wendell Cox, you’ll see that they specialize in half-truths. There was a statement by Daniel Patrick Moynihan that said: you’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.

SB: What sort of “half-truths”?

GB: One example: they keep saying that only two percent of total trips in the metropolitan area are by mass transit. That means absolutely nothing. Transit doesn’t serve everywhere, we know that.

What you have to look at are the corridors where transit is competitive. If you look, for instance, at the District of Columbia, 40 percent of people entering the downtown area in the morning rush hour are carried by transit. And that’s been stable for the last twenty or thirty years. Forty percent, that’s a huge number.

So to get that two percent, they include truck trips, trips to the laundry, trips to the grocery, etc. You can make the overall percentage of transit trips look smaller depending on how you count. For example, if you take your car and go to the laundry, then the grocery store, then the drug store, then home, each of those are counted as one trip. Right there, that gives you four trips during one outing. But, if you take transit downtown, do the same errands, and come back that counts as just two trips. Some conservatives have fastened onto the “small” percentage of transit trips overall as a reason for not supporting transit, but it’s partly an anomaly in the way things are counted.

SB: Is there something in the way that liberals have tried to sell transit that has actively turned conservatives off?

GB: When liberals use environmental benefits as a justification for transit that is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. They don’t buy that. Likewise, conservatives don’t respond well to the idea that transit is worthwhile because transit “helps” transit-dependent people who don’t have cars. It works better to remind conservatives that we take transit just as much as everybody else.

SB: What about the argument that transit and active transportation can help reduce obesity and health care costs? Will that resonate with conservatives or just stink of nanny-government?

GB: I’ve seen studies bearing this out, and they certainly make sense to me. Sprawl keeps us in our cars, and reduces the amount of exercise we get. Current land use patterns are not healthy. But for most conservatives, it would be the latter.

SB: How big is your center, and how is it funded?

GB: Right now we are a shoestring operation. We are small, but looking to grow in the future. We’re funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. We’re with the American Conservative, under the umbrella of the American Ideas Institute, which just recently formed. The amount of support and encouragement we’ve received so far has been quite gratifying.

SB: What do you think of Obama’s pitch for $50 billion in infrastructure investments as a way to kick-start the economy?

GB: It’s too little, too late, I’m afraid. When Obama first became president, he should have made clear that one of the centerpieces of his administration was going to be bringing back the infrastructure in this country. I’m sure Mr. Oberstar and others who came out to support him are saying privately: “Jeesh, I wish he’d done that a year-and-a-half ago.”

SB: Would transit work better if it was run more often by private companies?

GB: It’s something we need to look at. In Europe, they have gone to public-private partnerships (PPP) to build rail transit systems, which has worked well in some areas. The EU is moving towards privatization of transit operations, but keeping planning and infrastructure improvements as a state responsibility. I should note that PPP’s haven’t always worked when they’ve put too much risk on the private sector. The Croydon light rail, which serves a borough of London, is an example of this.

SB: Do you get labeled as a turncoat or a Republican in Name Only (RINO) for supporting transit as a conservative?

GB: Based on what I’ve read so far, not yet. Of course, the usual suspects are going to say we’re wrong, and give their nostrums and tired old reasons for opposing transit—it’s a waste of money, we need to build more roads, and we’re suffering from congestion because we don’t invest enough in highways. Still, we haven’t seen anybody get really nasty yet.

SB: Do you support buses as well as rail?

GB: Well, buses are part of public transportation, but our emphasis is on rail. We feel that rail gives you the biggest bang for the buck over the long term.

SB: Are there specific projects that you’ve seen bipartisan support on?

GB: Oklahoma City — not exactly a bastion of liberalism — is a good example. They had a referendum last November to extend a tax that would pay for improvements downtown to make the city more walkable. It includes a streetcar connector, and the referendum passed rather handily. Cincinnati has approved a plan for a streetcar circulator. It didn’t have a whole lot of bipartisan support, but it had enough to get it through.

SB: Which Republicans do you see as emerging leaders on the topic of transportation?

GB: Well, one of the things we’re going to try to do is identify members of Congress who would think favorably of our proposals. One of our biggest friends in the Senate is Bob Bennett from Utah, but he didn’t make it [past] the primary. John Mica is a powerful person, and we’re hoping we might be able to talk to him. We’re looking at various places where we can identify people on both sides of the aisle who would be amenable to our message. It isn’t going to be easy.

Let’s not sugar-coat this. Rick Perry, already the longest-serving governor in Texas history, is almost certainly going to win an unprecedented third term. And that’s bad news for people hoping for a shift away from autocentric transportation planning.

An artist's rendering of the planned Trans-Texas Corridor, with a separate right-of-way for every mode. FHWA

Perry is running against Democrat and former Houston Mayor Bill White. White has challenged some of Perry’s more ill-conceived road-building projects and has some nice things to say about high speed rail, but he’s no banner-waving reformer.

“Throughout his administration, it was apparent that he was fine with people wanting trains, but he himself does not see them as an important priority,” said Andrew Burleson, who writes the transportation and planning blog neoHOUSTON. “To him, the purpose of democracy is to let people vote for frivolities if they wish, but his job as mayor was to keep cars moving.”

For example, Burleson said, White talked a good game about promoting transit, but he effectively blocked a metrorail extension bill that would have added 40 new miles of light rail to the seven miles already in the system. White’s administration insisted on 12-foot-wide traffic lanes on every street. Aside from the huge additional expense, Burleson said, “You don’t want that on a pedestrian-heavy street. Cars will drive too fast.”

White told Grist that he’s in favor of “removing barriers” to people who want to walk to work, but that he wouldn’t push walkable urbanism from the state level. He wants to reform TxDOT by decentralizing power to give local jurisdictions more of a say in where the money goes. He criticizes Perry’s road-building binge, mostly because the state had to take on billions of dollars in debt to do it. Texas, under Perry, has built more roads in the last 10 years than any other state – a fact Perry touts every chance he gets.

White also criticizes Perry’s controversial attempt to privatize of toll roads, which would have paid billions to design, build and finance State Highway 121. The legislature blocked the deal. Perry says he’ll keep fighting for it if reelected. White says he would have applied for federal high speed rail funds, “rather than losing those dollars by default to Florida and California.” He says the congested I-35 corridor, which goes north from Mexico, is a prime candidate for rail. Perry has pushed to widen the highway.

Gov. Rick Perry, left, is expected to beat out Democrat Bill White to win an unprecedented third term. Texas Tribune

Perry was also the architect of the Trans-Texas Corridor plan, a mega-construction mission currently underway (albeit in slightly downsized form). The plan is to create a corridor up to a quarter of a mile wide with separate rights-of-way for trucks, passenger cars, freight rail, oil and gas pipelines, and high speed rail.

While Burleson of neoHOUSTON acknowledged the need to deal with the high volume of trucks from Mexico and that the rail additions would be welcome, “The vision for execution was asinine,” he said. “With a quarter-mile right of way, it can’t be remotely close to any city, so they planned these major corridors 50 to 60 miles outside of major cities. For passenger rail? Are you kidding me? If you need to drive 50 miles to the station and then another 50 miles once you get there, you’ve already driven half the distance. You might as well just drive the whole way and have your car when you arrive. Any passenger rail should be directly city to city.”

White ran a political ad blasting the Trans-Texas Corridor project. “Rick Perry said he loves private property rights until he wanted to take people’s homes and family farms,” the ad states. “Perry would bulldoze half a million acres of private land and give it to a Spanish company to build toll roads and let the company set the tolls.”

Rick Perry also earned the wrath of reformers by vetoing a wildly popular bill to protect vulnerable road users. “The bill passed both houses by veto-proof majorities—25-5 in the Senate and 140-5 in the House with one absence—but with the legislative session over, the veto most likely will not be overridden,” lamented Houston Tomorrow, a nonprofit that works on urban issues in the region.

The bill, similar to recently enacted laws in Delaware and New York, requires drivers to maintain a safe passing distance near pedestrians, highway construction and maintenance workers, stranded motorists, and bicyclists, and increases penalties for motorists who cause injuries to vulnerable road users.

In his veto statement, Perry showed his complete disregard for the safety of these people and for the concept of complete streets. He said vulnerable users “already have operation regulations and restrictions in statute” and pointed out several responsibilities that they have, but none of the rights. He rejected the idea of requiring “specific actions by operators of motor vehicles.” And he resisted the implication that motorists should be assumed to be at fault in collisions with pedestrians.

Bill White is known for a “my way or the highway” style of governing — but at least he’d rein in some of Perry’s highway spending. Not that he’s likely to get the chance — Perry has maintained a solid eight point lead, and many Texans have tuned out of a race not expected to bear any surprises.

Colorado is a classic swing state. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by a margin of just 3.5 percent. The state voted for Obama in 2008, the first time it went blue in a presidential contest since Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. And before that, you had to go all the way back to LBJ.

But now this purple state may be losing its red. Gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes’ trainwreck of a campaign could leave the GOP a minor party in the state of Colorado. Could it have something to do with his bizarre allegations that bike-sharing in Denver is a UN plot? Or his zeal to de-regulate the oil and gas industries?

From left: Tom Tancredo, Dan Maes, and John Hickenlooper in a three-way debate in Colorado's gubernatorial election. Image: AP

As Talking Points Memo reported yesterday, if Maes fails to attract just 10 percent of the votes next Tuesday, the GOP will be saddled with minor party status in Colorado until 2014. A recent Denver Post poll shows him at 9 percent. The Democratic-affiliated PPP poll gives him just 5 percent. Minor party status would leave the GOP at a serious disadvantage by limiting their fundraising and ceding their spot at the top of the ballot.

That doesn’t mean Democrat John Hickenlooper will just cruise into the governor’s mansion though. American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo (formerly a Republican member of Congress) is making this race a contest, with Hickenlooper ahead by about 6 percent, according to the polling average cited on Real Clear Politics. They’re competing for the seat being vacated by Democrat Bill Ritter, who was rated the country’s greenest governor last year.

Tancredo is too singularly obsessed with immigration to talk much about transportation or environmental issues. But not Maes.

“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” he said in August of Denver’s bike-sharing program, which Hickenlooper had helped to launch as the city’s mayor. “This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms.”

His conspiracy theories about bicycles made Maes, a Tea Party favorite, a bit of an easy target for his opponents. He fueled the fire with a series of paranoid statements, each kookier than the last, about the UN plot to subdue America through cycling.

Maes, who got his start in business working in the telecommunications industry before moving on to a credit reporting agency, is more of an oil-and-gas guy. He wants to remove “bureaucratic regulations” that restrict the fossil fuel industry.

Meanwhile, Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper has been fiercely promoting green transportation during his tenure as mayor of Denver. Openly asking questions like, “How do we wean ourselves off automobiles?”, Hickenlooper has championed both biking and transit, building consensus among 32 area mayors for the $6.5 billion FasTracks regional rail and bus expansion project.

Hickenlooper has gotten under the skin of the auto industry by openly plotting the shift away from the single-occupancy vehicle. “This country’s in love with automobiles,” he said in an interview with Grist. “That’s not going to go away quick. But we can give people more options.”

He likens the ascent of biking versus driving to the rapid rise of the cell phone. “If you told people 10 years ago that landlines would disappear as fast as they are, they wouldn’t have believed you.”

And Hickenlooper is very aware of the sea change in people’s desire for urbanism. “People say nobody wants to live in downtowns in Western cities, because people want yards,” he told Grist. “But we built over 25,000 condominiums and homes in downtown Denver in the last 15 years. If you lay [transit] out right, people will change their ways.”

But the 40 percent of the vote Tancredo is commanding points to the fact that for a large part of the Colorado electorate, this election isn’t about energy independence or smart cities. It’s about immigration. Hickenlooper has had to play defense on charges that he’s made Denver a “sanctuary city” for undocumented immigrants.

But whether or not he wins the Minuteman vote, he’s got the bike vote locked up.