As baby boomers age, more of them are finding that auto dependent suburbia doesn't work for everybody. Photo: Transportation for America

However, more than 20 percent of seniors (age 65 and up) do not drive at all. In the spread-out, transit-poor communities where many of them live, seniors who don’t drive miss out on countless opportunities. According to a report released today by Transportation for America called “Aging in Place: Stuck Without Options”:

Absent access to affordable travel options, seniors face isolation, a reduced quality of life and possible economic hardship. A 2004 study found that seniors age 65 and older who no longer drive make 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor, 59 percent fewer trips to shop or eat out, and 65 percent fewer trips to visit friends and family, than drivers of the same age.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology conducted the analysis for the T4A report, finding that a large proportion of seniors lack transit access currently, and that in 2015, just a few short years away, 15.5 million seniors will find themselves without transportation options

“My generation grew up and reared our children in communities that, for the first time in human history, were built on the assumption that everyone would be able to drive an automobile,” said John Robert Smith, former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi and co-chair of Transportation for America.

When seniors can’t get out, the local economy suffers too. Smith says when he was mayor, Meridian set a goal of recruiting retirees.

“Retirees bring their retirement funds into your communities, deposit them in your banks; they support your school systems but they don’t make demands on your school systems, they don’t put children in the school system; they are law-abiding, good citizens so they don’t have that impact on your police department, they’re just an all around benefit and plus for your community,” Smith said.

Even seniors who can still drive might find that they feel nervous driving after dark, or that their reflexes are slowing down. Still others start looking for other transportation options because their fixed incomes can’t absorb high gas prices.

CNT’s definition of access to transit is not without its problems. It defines poor access differently for different sized metro areas, which makes sense if you’re comparing areas to each other, but for all intents and purposes, a senior with access to 11 transit lines in densely-developed New York City is a lot better off than a person without decent access to even one transit line in Houma, Louisiana – yet both are considered equally transit-poor by the study. (Of course, only 41 percent of New York seniors will lack good transit access in four years, as opposed to 87 percent in Houma.)

Meanwhile, the information on the metro areas was pulled from a larger data pool which considered “transit access” to mean that a person was within half a mile of a rail station or a quarter mile from a bus stop. Those distances weren’t revised for this study, although this study dealt with a population for whom a half-mile may be a significantly long walk. Reducing the distance allowed for a definition of “access” would only increase the numbers of seniors stranded by the current system.

Transportation for America calls for federal-level fixes to the problem, which the group hopes to see included in the next transportation reauthorization bill:

• Increased dedicated funding for buses, trains, vanpools, specialized transit and ridesharing
• Continued funding of transit through the Highway Trust Fund
• Inclusion of seniors and other community stakeholders as states and metros develop plans for meeting the mobility needs of seniors
• Continued authority for states to “flex” a portion of their highway funds for transit projects and programs
• A “complete streets” approach to make streets and intersections around transit stops safe for people of all ages and abilities

Those recommendations might help geographically isolated seniors reach services, but is it really the responsibility of the taxpayer to subsidize the decisions people have made to live in places that explicitly reject transit accessibility? Should those inefficient, low-density, sprawling areas be retrofitted with transit now that their populations are aging?

Cristina Martin Firvida, who works on these issues for AARP, said helping seniors marooned in those areas helps everybody. And besides, the suburbs were built through federal policies encouraging outward development after the second world war, she said – it’s not just that one person built a house on top of a mountain and then demanded that taxpayer-subsidized transit come to them. “The suburbs is where our economy and our entire society has moved to since the fifties,” Firvida said. “It’s where everyone lives.”

However, Cathie Berger of Atlanta’s Area Agency on Aging acknowledged that that type of development isn’t helping, and that at the very least, metro areas can try to change the way they plan land use. (And this is coming from Atlanta, the worst-ranked large metro area the report found, with 90 percent of seniors lacking adequate transit access by 2015.)

“We are trying to shift away from the continued development of the largest subdivisions that really don’t provide the options people need,” Berger said.

She also went beyond the report’s recommendations, which maintain a tight focus on transportation solutions, to explore other land use options that can make for more senior-friendly neighborhoods. “We are trying to retrofit the built environment to make our communities more age-friendly and enable our seniors to age in place,” Berger said. “This includes making our communities more walkable and improving access to services. We are also, for instance, working with our county and city planning departments to revise zoning codes to make it easier to develop denser projects that offer diverse housing.”

“It’s really important we get communities that work for people, having grocery stores and the amenities people need in their own community,” added Peter Haas, the chief research scientist for the Center for Neighborhood Technology. “And if that’s only market-driven, it’s not going to happen in a low-density suburban location. So the incentives need to be there, or there has to be a redistribution of development patterns.”

Across the country, Highway Bridge Program funds fail to meet states' needs.

Few people think that this could happen to their local bridge or highway overpass, but a snowballing epidemic of deferred maintenance could mean more and more bridge closings across the country. How we got here is the subject of Transportation for America’s new “Fix It” campaign, which was launched yesterday with the release of a special report on the country’s aging bridges. “The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges” [PDF] aims to motivate Congress to significantly increase “common sense” funding for the repair, reconstruction and upgrading of existing bridges and overpasses. It addresses the political and fiscal challenges that transportation officials face in maintaining the infrastructure we already have. The report marks a significant contribution of data to the national transportation debate and presents an interactive online map that people can use to check the safety of the bridges in their area, offering a new level of transparency on the status of our bridges.

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.

T4America says:

In two batches in February and October 2010, USDOT gave out a total of $2.1 billion for innovative transportation projects that address economic, environmental and travel issues at once. The TIGER program, as its known (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery), is a competitive and merit-based process to pick projects and should be a model for next transportation authorization.

“Almost all of these projects have two things in common,” said T4 America director James Corless. ”They will all create desperately-needed jobs while building critical transportation infrastructure, and they have a hard time getting funded under the outdated structure of the current federal transportation program. These projects in communities across the country will create good paying jobs, spur local economic development, and keep our metro and rural areas connected. The administration is responding to the demand for funding that can help make communities of all sizes more livable, more competitive and more connected.

The official White House photo of the president's meeting on infrastructure. That's Angela Glover Blackwell in the gold-checkered jacket.

On Monday, President Obama talked infrastructure with two governors, eight mayors, four former transportation secretaries (and the current one), two labor leaders – and one public interest advocate. That advocate was Angela Glover Blackwell, founder of the think tank PolicyLink and chair of the Transportation for America Equity Caucus, which launched last week. The roundtable discussed the president’s $50 billion infrastructure proposal, which is galvanizing transportation reformers as the contours come into sharper focus.

Blackwell spoke to Streetsblog about her meeting with the president, why transportation matters for social equity, and how people can help make the most of the current opportunity to reform national transportation policy.

Streetsblog: What was it like meeting with the president?

Blackwell: It was wonderful to be in a meeting with the president and the Treasury secretary and governors and mayors from around the country talking about infrastructure, with an emphasis on transportation. We’ve been focused on it for years, and it was encouraging to see it getting that level of attention and to see the President of the United States take an interest in transportation.

Angela Glover Blackwell

But I felt I had a tremendous responsibility to lift up the voices of low-income people and people of color and the communities where they live. It’s easy to talk about transportation and not talk about poverty, or the severe unemployment among Latinos and African Americans, those hit first and worst by this recession. I felt on my shoulders the responsibility to express that this has to be done in a way that impacts those who need it most. And the others there really heard what I was saying. Several referred back to what I had said, which was that transportation is a lifeline to opportunity in this country, and it’s way too important to leave to transportation professionals.

I also thought it was very important that at the top of the conversation, when the president came in, he turned to Governor Rendell and me to frame the conversation. He showed a lot of interest in talking about equity and inclusion.

SB: Set the scene for us. How long was the meeting? Did President Obama talk more or listen more?

AGB: We started the meeting at 9:30 with [Treasury] Secretary [Tim] Geithner and [Transportation] Secretary [Ray] LaHood, talking about the two reports. That lasted till about 10:00 or 10:15, when the president came in, and then we met until 11:15. So we were with the president for a good hour.

The president was mostly listening. He made opening comments about the importance of the issue, but he was very much in the mode of hearing from others about transportation, and about the $50 billion proposal.

SB: You talk about the importance of inclusivity and equity in the design of the transportation plan. These aren’t issues that everyone thinks about when they think of transportation. How does this issue affect the communities you represent?

AGB: The bottom fifth of the population spends 42% of their income on transportation. Nearly 25 percent of African Americans are without a car, and almost as many Latinos. So public transportation is very important in these communities, and it is under severe threat right now in the nation. In 110 cities, or more, public transit routes are at risk, and these are the routes residents use to take their children to school, to go to work, to go shopping. In St. Louis, in Georgia, bus lines are being cut, and people are being cut off from being able to get to work.

So we need to be investing in public transportation more, and investing in roads and bridges less. Thirty-one percent more jobs are created through public transportation than building new roads and bridges. And repairing existing roads and bridges creates 16 percent more jobs than building new ones.

What we are seeing is that more money goes into capital, and not operations. Communities need resources to keep the bus lines running, they need enough operators moving these transportation systems and to provide the support we need.

That’s the link between transportation and equity. Not just any investment in transportation produces equity. Investing in public transportation, workforce training, and operations – these are important components of equity.

SB: You’ve highlighted the problems facing rural areas.

AGB: Often when we think about equity we think about urban areas, inner cities. But there is a lot of poverty in rural areas and in those areas, people can be so isolated. People think everyone in rural areas works in family farming and all they have to do is walk out the front door and they work right there in their own fields. But family farming has virtually disappeared. Most people are working in big box retail like Wal-mart, and they travel great distances to get to their jobs, or to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, or to get their children to school. We need bus lines there; we need creative programs that invest in carpooling like jitneys that we see in other countries.

SB: What’s your sense of why the president is pushing infrastructure investment now?

AGB: I can only speculate that infrastructure is a wonderful win-win-win for the nation. It gets the nation ready for the 21^st century global economy. While the United States has been a leader in the global economy, it will not continue to be if we don’t invest in infrastructure. Infrastructure also provides good-paying jobs that will move people into the middle class and will train people for the infrastructure jobs of the 21^st century. We needed more money for infrastructure than we got in the first ARRA. This is a wonderful way to get the economy started again.

SB: What about the politics of this moment?

AGB: I personally worry about the politics of this moment. I am absolutely perplexed by them. Historically, infrastructure has not divided people along party lines in this nation. It’s quite shocking to me that we would be teeing up for a political battle over infrastructure investment, but sadly, it appears that we are. Everything seems to be falling into that abyss these days. People think nothing government does can be important, meaningful, or effective.

SB: President Obama is calling for a lame-duck push on the $50 billion proposal. Do you think that could happen?

AGB: I hope so.

SB: How can people who care about equity help influence this process?

AGB: On the $50 billion, get in touch with your congressional representatives and senators right away, saying how important it is to move this $50 billion into infrastructure, and pay attention to equity. Tell them to invest in public transportation and job training, especially in our hardest hit communities, making sure people are getting jobs who need them.

In the future, we won't all be zipping around in our little hovercraft bubbles (as imagined by Disney in 1958)...

All of these transportation improvements are happening already – they’re examples of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) that are being heralded in a new report as a way to set the bar higher for transportation efficiency. Transportation for America, ITS America and other groups have teamed up to urge Congress to include technological enhancements in its transportation policies. They’re hoping these changes can help us get more out of our streets without building sprawl-inducing highways.

...but we will be cutting traffic with parking sensors that allow cities to set curbside prices based on demand. Top image: Paleo-Future. Bottom image: SFPark.

ITS is a catch-all phrase for the ways digital technology can be applied to all modes of transportation. There are familiar forms of ITS on highways. E-ZPass has been around for about 15 years already. Electronic highway signs warning of delays or detours are becoming commonplace. Now, Google traffic maps supplement radio reports to help drivers pick more efficient routes. Add to the mix Zipcar and other car-sharing services, or vanpools with real-time tracking, and ITS becomes not just a method to move cars more efficiently, but to make streets more efficient by taking cars off the road.

“The technologies already exist,” says Lilly Shoup, the report author at T4A. “Now it’s a matter of being more strategic in integrating them throughout the transportation network.”

Integration with infrastructure and vehicles is key – and it’s why this is the moment to shine the light on these technologies. Smart phone-based ride-sharing or bus-tracking, for example, wouldn’t have had much impact five years ago. But the proliferation of smart phones has made these real options. Building a transportation network based on technology is more possible when that technology is abundant in all the places you’re trying to link together.

And it can have a real environmental impact.

Japan credits technology with helping improve traffic flows and reducing emissions by 11 million tons, according to T4A. And a recent GAO report found that the benefits of deploying a real-time traffic information system across the country would outweigh the cost by a factor of 25 to 1.

Compare that to what the report calls “the more conventional solution of adding new highway capacity, which has a benefit-to-cost ratio estimated at 2.7 to 1.”

T4A, ITS America and their partners want the federal government to embrace these new technologies. Their recommendations are pretty loose: establishing emissions reductions targets and incentivizing technological innovations at the state and regional levels. With the variety of technological options out there, they aren’t prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach to cities and regions.

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) quietly introduced a bill on transportation optimization right before the House broke for recess, but details of the legislation are not yet available.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New York State devotes just 1 percent of its federal transportation funds to pedestrian infrastructure. Photo: Wikipedia

In the last 15 years, more than 76,000 Americans have been killed while crossing or walking along a street in their community. More than 43,000 Americans -- including 3,906 children under 16 -- have been killed this decade alone. This is the equivalent of a jumbo jet going down roughly every month, yet it receives nothing like the kind of attention that would surely follow such a disaster.

Counterintuitive as it may be, "Dangerous by Design" also finds that, when it comes to investing in pedestrian-friendly streets, New York has little room to boast. Here are local stats culled from the report, issued in a joint statement from TSTC, Transportation Alternatives, the Regional Plan Association and TWU Local 100:

• 22.5 percent of total traffic deaths in New York State are pedestrians
  
• 31 percent of total traffic deaths in the NYC metropolitan area are pedestrians
  
• Only 1 percent of New York State federal transportation funds are spent on pedestrian infrastructure, an average of $0.73 per person
  
• New York State ranks 44th in the nation for federal spending on walking and biking
  
• The NYC metropolitan area receives only $0.61 per person in federal funds for pedestrian and bike facilities, well below the meager $1.39 spent per person for metro areas nationwide

Advocates are calling on Governor Paterson and the New York State Legislature to designate 10 percent of federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and 10 percent of federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funding for pedestrian safety; to enact a statewide complete streets policy; to increase funding for Safe Routes to School and Safe Seniors programs; and to create a statewide Safe Routes to Transit program.

"From 2005 to 2008, New York has received $5.6 billion in federal transportation funds," reads the statement. "In the same amount of time there have been 1,215 preventable pedestrian deaths."

You can download "Dangerous By Design" in its entirety here. Elana Schor has more on the report's national implications at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

(Photo: T4A)

T4A's report illustrates the punishing effect of such cuts on transit riders, many of them low-income workers, with a set of well-trammeled statistics: demand hit a 50-year high in 2008; every dollar invested in transit produces an estimated $6 in economic growth; transit is far safer than car travel and provides greater public health benefits.

But when it comes to the political battle over remaking national transport priorities, T4A's transit cuts map -- viewable right here -- speaks loudest of all.

Transit fare increases and service reductions, T4A found, are concentrated in major cities and along the coasts. And as the current health care conflagration has shown, lawmakers rarely wield political power that's commensurate with the share of the population they represent.

As the Washington Post's Alec MacGillis catalogued in a commentary last week, Senate influence is particularly concentrated in the hands of small-state denizens such as Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D) of Montana, who fought to remove a provision helping transit agencies with punitive tax shelters from last year's auto bailout bill.

Per MacGillis:

And then there's the Senate's age-old distortion of distributive politics, in which goodies are doled out on anything but a per-capita basis. California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are among the 10 states that get the least back per tax dollar sent to Washington; Alaska, the Dakotas and West Virginia are among those that get the most.

In that context, it's not surprising that federal support for metro-area priorities such as transit is so perilously thin. Even in the House, where urban representatives lead several key committees, transit backers have yet to convince the Ways and Means panel to move forward with a solution to the immense revenue gap that has stalled progress on new long-term transport legislation.

A letter sent last month urging Ways and Means chairman Charles Rangel (D) -- who represents a transit-heavy district in New York City -- to press on with a transportation bill this year was signed by 15 of the committee's 26 Democrats. Yet metro-area members such as Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), whose district is near Oakland, and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) of Atlanta were absent.

And the legislation that T4A's report singled out as a concrete boost for transit agencies, Rep. Russ Carnahan's (D-MO) proposal to provide federal help with operating costs, does not count Rangel as one of its 60 co-sponsors. The bill also lacks a Senate counterpart, despite the presence of two transportation-minded Democrats in leadership positions (Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Environment Committee chairman Barbara Boxer of California).

Of course, the political savvy of rural lawmakers does not automatically mean transportation reform must fall by the wayside; West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D), chairman of the Commerce Committee, has taken the lead on a plan to set national performance targets for reductions in emissions and vehicle miles traveled.

Still, T4A's picture of cutbacks brilliantly illustrates where transit's congressional constituency should be leaping to its aid -- the question is what it would take to make that happen.

(Image: ARTBA)

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), which represents major construction companies, released a bulletin to members today urging them to connect with members of Congress in support of quick action on a long-term transportation bill next month.

Referencing lawmakers’ reluctance to debate new funding sources for federal infrastructure investment, ARTBA suggested telling Congress to "make generating sufficient revenue for a $450 billion bill a priority."

That price tag matches the legislation released by House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) in June, which is headed for consideration by the full panel after Congress returns from its recess. Getting through to the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, as ARTBA mentions, is a crucial step for Oberstar allies; if that panel does not put forth recommendations on how to pay for the bill, the transport measure could stall before reaching the full House.

While ARTBA and Oberstar are aligned on the timeframe for proceeding with a new transportation bill, the construction group is not on board with all of the chairman’s priorities. ARTBA opposes giving state and local governments the ability to "flex" highway funds into transit projects better suited for their needs.

ARTBA’s transit policy also states that the 80-20 distribution of federal gas tax revenues to highway and transit projects
"sets a fair modal balance which should be maintained." Oberstar’s new legislation alters that balance only slightly, creating an estimated 78-22 split between highways and transit, respectively.

The construction industry isn’t the only transportation player working on lobbying during the congressional recess. The pro-transit Transportation for America (T4A) is fanning out to contact lawmakers through its member groups and plans bulletins of its own in the coming days, spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview.

As for where T4A stands on the timing for a long-term transport bill, Goldberg added:

We want to pass a bill that contains the important, major reforms, and if it takes a few more weeks or months, we should take the time. What we don’t want to see is a long delay where this falls off the radar. If there’s going to be reform, we have to keep the conversation going.

This morning our friends over at Transportation for America are launching a new site called My Commute Sucks, designed to give people around the country a place to vent their frustration over the nation's overburdened and inefficient transportation systems. Commuters can share their tales of commuting woe, upload photos and videos, and also take action by contacting members of Congress to ask for a more sane and sustainable approach to transportation policy.

Already the stories are starting to pile up. Here's one from a New Jersey commuter named Betty:

The Garden State Parkway in New Jersey is a nightmare, just like Jersey's other main arteries.

I would love to bike to the train, but the town of Little Silver doesn't have safe cycling roads. Pedestrians are also at risk on some of the very busy, sidewalk-free and shoulderless roads. 

Finally, the trains are a mess with many discontinuous lines, requiring bus/taxi/light rail connections between stations. ugh 

Build bikeways and we will come! Fix the trains and we will ride!

Brian Fellows asks:

Why should we tolerate 1- and 2-hour commutes?  Think how much time we spend away from our families, burning fossil fuels, and getting stressed out -- every day, every month, every year.  The quantity is staggering.  Even now, just 5 months after the start of our metro area's light rail system (which people are flocking to!) it still takes me an hour to get to work.  Building more lane-miles simply induces more people to drive -- and there you have it: even more traffic.  I would like Congress to attach requirements to highway money that mandate recipients/states to design higher-density and mixed-use development along the highway corridors. 

Go ahead and add your own story. The site has lots of interactive features, including a Twitter feed for micro-rants (tag with #mycommutesucks). You can also follow them on Twitter, they're @mycommutesucks.

From the executive summary: 

The next transportation program must set about the urgent task of repairing and maintaining our existing transportation assets, building a more well-rounded transportation network, and making our current system work more efficiently and safely to create complete and healthy communities. It should invest in modern and affordable public transportation, safe places to walk and bicycle, smarter highways that use technology and tolling to better manage congestion, long-distance rail networks, and land use policies that reduce travel demand by locating more affordable housing near jobs and services. And it should put us on the path towards a stronger national future by helping us reduce our oil dependency, slow climate change, improve social equity, enhance public health, and fashion a vibrant new economy.

Getting there from here will require some significant reforms. To meet these goals, the T4 America coalition offers four main recommendations for the upcoming transportation authorization bill:

• Develop a New National Transportation Vision with Objectives and Accountability for Meeting Performance Targets.
• Restructure Federal Transportation Programs and Funding to Support the New National Transportation Vision and Objectives.
• Reform Transportation Agencies and theDecision-making Process.
• Revise Transportation Finance So We Can Pay for Needed Investments.

This transportation bill is going to be of crucial importance to all the issues we discuss on this site on a regular basis. The T4A report provides a great overview of the key points on which advocates can push for reform. Take a look.

Photo: AARP

Forty million Americans over the age of 50 belong to the organization, which is increasingly focused on the next federal transportation bill. "America is aging rapidly and transportation policy and spending must acknowledge this demographic shift," said AARP's Nancy Leamond in a press statement. "The upcoming transportation authorization can help the nation prepare both for its graying years and a greener future by making roads safer for drivers of all ages and also offering more user friendly options for pedestrians and transit users."

AARP's publications have been turning an eye toward the benefits of reducing car dependence and making streets safer for older Americans. Recent articles in the AARP Bulletin have examined Safe Streets for Seniors programs and the need to invest stimulus funds in infrastructure for walking, biking, and transit. An ongoing collaboration with Project for Public Spaces produced a series of three books about how citizens can improve their streets. You can meet the authors at a book launch and reception next Thursday at PPS's office on Broadway and 4th Street.

Advocates have to keep up the pressure on each count. Bond's amendments are still very much a threat, and the Boxer/Inhofe amendment, while malleable, is a disaster waiting to happen in its current incarnation. The latest action item from T4A takes aim at both.

I hope you noticed that our Streetsblog Network Action Widget -- it's there on the right sidebar -- is sporting a new call to arms for this latest fight in the Senate. If you'd like to add a dynamic action alert to your own blog or website, here are the instructions.

Transportation for America sends along some key points to make in your phone call:

• In the poll released a few weeks ago by Transportation For America
  and the National Association of Realtors, fully 80% of respondents said
  that stimulus funds should not only create jobs, but also help us meet
  the goals of reducing oil dependence, improving the environment and
  increasing transportation options. Now is the time to increase much
  needed funding for public transportation.
• Transportation For America has identified more than $5 billion in
  new transit extension and rail projects that could be ready to go in
  120 days, generating over 178,000 new jobs. These investments could put
  people to work building and operating rail cars and bus vehicles, in
  the steel and concrete industries and in design and planning
  professions.

Tell us how things go in the comments.

In the end, reports Politico, green transportation advocates on Capitol Hill had to focus on limiting the damage that would be wrought by unchecked highway building. So the relatively small dollar amounts for transportation -- half of some predictions -- are, in a perverse sense, something of a blessing. But the draft bill needs to get tougher on state DOTs to keep their bad habits in check, says Transportation for America:

Without explicit language prioritizing a fix-it-first approach to infrastructure investment written into the legislation, federal funds could be wasted adding new highways to a system the House bill describes as “crumbling”. This would have the effect of digging ourselves a deeper hole of oil dependence, even as we invest stimulus money elsewhere in the hope of finding a way out.

And they've got some fresh public opinion research to back up their message:

A new poll shows that most Americans would rather use federal dollars to repair highways and bridges and improve public transportation than expand highways through new construction.

In addition, fully 80 percent of respondents said stimulus investments should not only create jobs, but also help the goals of reducing oil dependency, improving the environment and increasing transportation options, even if the job creation took longer.

After the jump, why the stimulus draft is bad policy for cities.

All told, urban areas get left behind by the draft legislation. Get ready for some math. That $30 billion for "highways"? Some of it would go directly to metro areas, but not nearly enough. The bill sets aside $7.4 billion for cities and metropolitan planning organizations, leaving more than $20 billion in the hands of states and their highway-happy DOTs. Mayors, progressive think tanks, and green transportation types have been calling for more decision-making power in the hands of cities, but the meager sum on offer falls far short of what this bill should deliver.

An alternative proposal from Rep. James Oberstar would more than double the share for MPOs -- agencies that, in general, are more likely to spend money on things like buses and sidewalks, not highways. (Because some MPOs do have a weakness for highway building, however, T4A is calling for their funds to be subject to fix-it-first requirements as well.) This is an important fight to track as the stimulus debate enters the next phase. The more stimulus money gets directed to cities, the more leeway those cities will have to invest in bus, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure.

States should know better than to funnel more money into road expansion at the expense of maintenance.

U.S. PIRG just released a great report [PDF] outlining what's known so far (most states haven't even gone public with their requests). Here are some updates since the last time we checked in on these wish lists:

• The Texas ask includes a whopping $6 billion for roads (97 percent of the total wish list), including $3.4 billion for expansion projects.
  
• North Carolina is just as brazen, asking for $5 billion for roads, of which $3.4 billion would fund expansion.
• South Carolina wants to spend nearly all of its $3.2 billion ask on roads, 80 percent on expansion.
  
• New York pretty much splits the difference between roads and transit, asking for about $1.8 billion for each (the analysis does not break down the road requests by expansion and maintenance)
  

The best state? Probably Massachusetts, which asked for more transit funding than road funding, absolutely no highway expansion money, and $18 million for bike and pedestrian projects. While one state proves that stimulus spending can signal a shift to more progressive priorities, the report leaves little doubt that the bill can't give all states a blank check.

Transportation for America has a new petition online urging Congress to impose oversight on states and avoid throwing money down the sinkhole of new highway capacity. This is an important one to speak up on, with big implications for this year's huge transportation re-authorization package as well as the current stimulus bill. If you want to personalize your letter a bit, check after the jump for some inspiration from a Connecticut state legislator and U.S. PIRG.

From U.S. PIRG's press release for their new report:

According to incoming Deputy Speaker of the Connecticut House, Representative David McCluskey, "We have an opportunity to use stimulus dollars to provide the people of Connecticut with the transportation alternatives they need for the future. We need to focus on regional and state-wide projects that will allow Connecticut to grow economically and in an environmentally conscientious manner. The new Congress and President need to put their foot down if they will deliver on the forward-looking Green recovery they’ve promised."

The report calls on Congress, the Obama Administration, and state leaders to apply the following principles to the writing and implementation of the next federal economic recovery legislation: (1) Highways should receive no more funds than the combined total for public transit, intercity rail, and bicycle and pedestrian projects; (2) Any road funds should go first to maintenance and repair of structurally deficient bridges and roads, not new highways or lanes; (3) Public transportation funds should include support for operations so agencies can accommodate rising demand. (4) Surface Transportation Program highway funds should be distributed as under current law so that a portion of resources flow directly to metropolitan areas that know best about which local projects are needed; (5) All states, cities, and agencies should publicly disclose the stimulus lists they have submitted; (6) Direct recipients of stimulus funds should report on how money was spent and any transportation spending that it displaced.

Streetsblog Network (http://streetsblog.net) brings together more than 100 blogs from 31 states — and counting. Its purpose is twofold: to create a place where people who blog on smart growth, livable streets and sustainable transportation issues can come together and learn from each other. And to provide a clearinghouse for information related to the transportation bill, or "TEA," that directs the spending of hundreds of billions of federal dollars. The next such bill is set to come up for reauthorization in 2009.

Federal transportation policy has long been a Beltway insider’s game, one where the highway lobby held most of the cards. This time, a coalition of organizations called Transportation for America has come together with the aim of taking the next TEA bill in a different direction.

We'll be using the Streetsblog Network site to give readers and bloggers opportunities for action on the TEA bill, information about upcoming committee hearings — pretty much all the news on this legislation that we can get our hands on.

Think of it as a community that gets things done.

Union Station, Denver, CO

T4A has set up a page for members of the public to send their own version to Obama via e-mail.

While you're at it, you can also outline your vision for the country, complete with photos and video, for the incoming White House team at change.gov. The T4A vision summary and Obama urban policy platform might be good jumping-off points.

The T4A letter appears in full after the jump.

What will you say to President-elect Obama? 

Dear President-elect Obama:

First of all...Congratulations! Your election, and results from down-ballot votes around the country, represents a resounding call for a new direction.

The Transportation for America campaign, representing more than 100 organizations and thousands of energized citizens around the country, salutes you. And we join you in seeking infrastructure investment that will stimulate the economy now and lay the groundwork for a clean-energy future that is less dependent on oil.

Americans are ready for this bold vision. Even in this tattered economy, citizens in California, Washington, Hawaii, Colorado and at least 10 other states voted themselves a tax increase so they could jumpstart construction of light rail, commuter train service, high-speed rail and other clean transportation options. Now they, and dozens of other communities, need a federal partner that can step up and do its part.

We call on you to follow through on the vision you offered in the campaign by acting rapidly, starting with the transition and during the first 100 days, to urge Congress to pass a smart package of stimulus investments as well as a new national transportation program. Appoint a Secretary of Transportation with a proven record of understanding both urban and rural needs, as well as how transportation, growth and development, the economy and the environment interact.

You have expressed support for building complete streets that “make it easier for us to walk, bicycle and access transportation alternatives,” and for repairing and restoring our troubled highways and bridges - we call on you today to fulfill that promise in your first 100 days.

By fixing our highways, bridges and transit systems, and pushing ahead with ready-to-go rail projects, we can create millions of jobs that can't be outsourced, launch a clean, green economic recovery, and get started on building a 21st century transportation system.

To quote our next president: "Yes, we can!"

Photo: Sandy Leidholdt/Flickr

All around the country, local transit systems are seeing spikes in ridership caused by rising fuel prices, and oftentimes straining under the increased demand. As part of our participation in Transportation for America's Build for America campaign, we've been looking around the country for bloggers who are covering these issues and who can lend their voices to the call for more funding for public transit around the country. That's how we found The Fairbanks Pedestrian.

The blog's creator, Paul Adasiak, recently wrote an interesting post on increased bus use in his Alaskan city. He's pleased that more people are riding because it means fewer cars on the road, sure. But when he saw a well-dressed man with a briefcase board the bus, he saw the potential for an even more profound effect:

I’m happy because the bus is starting to be more of a social leveler, bringing together a wider variety of ages, races, educations, and incomes.  And that’s important.

How many people of another social class, or race, or educational level are you likely to meet while at work?  Probably few.  How many in your home, barring your own parents or children?  Very few.  And how many while driving alone in your car?  Absolutely none!  For much of our days, most of have no chance to rub elbows with people who seem unlike us, because we lack space in which this can happen.  Our stratification and our isolation dim our understanding and dull our sympathies.

I recall, growing up in Anchorage, some ordinance involving expanded bus service came up before the municipal assembly (I think), and Mayor Tom Fink, speaking against it, said, “Everybody I know drives a car.”  Well, wonderful.  That really spoke more to his own social class and his own isolation from others, than it did to the actual state of affairs.

If the privileged leaders of our community — if our City Council and Borough Assembly members, our captains of industry, our professors, the members of our Chamber of Commerce — got to ride the bus every day, and to rub elbows with their fellow citizens of all classes, no such ignorant statement could escape their lips without consequence.  And I expect it would be much harder for us all to hold on to our prejudices.

Photo: drniii/Flickr