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At Rail~Volution yesterday, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) — also known as the godfather of the “rail~volution” — said even he wouldn’t raise the gas tax right now.

“We should make some adjustments to a gas tax that hasn’t increased since 1993,” Blumenauer said. “Half the people think the gas tax goes up every year.”

He said he’d like to see it indexed to inflation:

In an ideal world, I would not raise the gas tax this year or next year. Come out of this recession, but put in place increases that are going to occur over the next 10 years; have that revenue stream. I would borrow against the revenue stream to take advantage of record low interest rates and a bidding climate like we’ve never seen, fund the president’s infrastructure bank to help move some of these forward, and work toward replacing the gas tax.

He reminded the audience that his state was the first to institute a gas tax, and now Oregon is working to get rid of it and replace it with a vehicle miles traveled fee.

Bill Millar, the outgoing president of the American Public Transit Association (“on Halloween, I turn into a pumpkin!”), said that before switching to a VMT fee, Congress needs to eliminate the federal guarantee, called “equity bonus,” that states will get back at least a certain percentage of what they pay in gas tax receipts. (The GAO recently found that every state actually gets back more than it puts in, thanks to infusions from the general fund, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of states from complaining that they don’t get their fair share.)

“States that encourage more travel get more money back [under the equity bonus system],” Millar said, “so we’ve got to break that cycle too, to make sure instead it’s an inverse relationship and states that give people more choice, more ways to travel, get more federal aid, not less federal aid.”

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If you drive to work, you can get a $230 monthly parking benefit, subsidized by the federal government and paid through your employer. If you take transit, right now you can get up to $230 per month, but the cap may revert to $120 when the current transit benefit law expires at the end of the year. And if you ride a bike? If your employer can even figure out how the bike benefit works, you get twenty bucks. Don’t spend that all in one place, kiddo. (Full disclosure: even Streetsblog hasn’t worked through the confusing bureaucracy enough to give its bike-commuting staff this benefit.)

The privileged position of cars in the employer-benefits paradigm could soon change. As Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) said today, “We need to take away subsidies that incentivize people to do just the opposite of what we ought to be doing.” As a congressman representing the second most congested part of the country, Moran said it was “stunning” that the tax code “is designed to subsidize congestion.”

Moran is a co-sponsor of Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-OR) Commuter Relief Act, introduced today as a way to bring some equity to different transportation modes. Why should drivers get up to $230 a month to foster oil dependency, greenhouse gas emissions, and congestion when everyone else gets so much less?

Blumenauer’s proposal contains a menu of options that lawmakers can choose among – or they can choose all of them. They are:

• Transit equity: sets the cap for all transportation benefits at $200 a month – parking and transit.
• Self-employed extension of transportation benefits: gives self-employed workers transit benefits for their work travel.
• Parking cash-out: requires employers who offer a parking benefit to also offer the option to take cash instead (reducing the incentive to drive).
• Van-pool credit: creates a 10 percent tax credit for spending on vanpool services.
• Bike benefit: raises the cap for the bike benefit from $20 to $40 and makes the procedures easier for employers. It also allows commuters to combine the bike benefit with transit or parking benefits, which they’re now not allowed to do.

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Streetfilms was out in Portland at this year’s Rail~Volution conference, putting our finger on the pulse of the sustainable transportation world. We spoke to a healthy dose of this year’s attendees, including advocates, bloggers, planners, transit industry reps and members of transportation agencies across the country. Among those we heard from was Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who helped push Rail~Volution — now in its twentieth year — to national prominence in 1995.  Well over a thousand folks attended the four-day event.

In addition, almost 500 people came to Portland’s famous Bagdad Theater to watch a program of short films on the big screen, eight of which were Streetfilms! Our fan base continues to grow, and an event like Rail~Volution brings home how much people look to Streetfilms as an inspiration and educational tool. It’s a great feeling.

The House of Representatives passed its 2011 appropriations bill for Transportation and Housing and Urban Development yesterday, significantly increasing the amount going to both highways and transit while decreasing spending overall. A fight over $200 million in funds for the Obama Administration's new livability initiatives, however, showed that substantive changes in federal transportation policy will remain difficult to achieve until Congress tackles the long-term transportation reauthorization bill. 

First, a refresher on the difference between authorizations and appropriations. Roughly speaking, authorizations set policy while appropriations spend money based on those policies. Congress passes a transportation appropriations bill, like the House did yesterday, every year, while the transportation authorization is renewed less frequently. The most recent authorization, SAFETEA-LU, passed in 2005 and was set to expire in 2009. It has been temporarily extended since then while Congress dithers over a new bill. 

According to The Hill, the House's $67.4 billion appropriations bill reduces spending overall by $500 million from last year, and is $1.3 billion less than what the Obama administration requested. Because major priorities are mainly set in the federal transportation bill, the appropriations bill rarely includes large shifts in policy.

On the biggest ticket transportation items, spending increased in this appropriation. The $45.2 billion set for highways is $4.1 billion more than last year's bill provided for, according to The Hill, and $3.9 billion more than the administration asked for. Similarly the $11.3 billion in transit spending would be $500 million more than last year and $575 million more than requested.

One squabble that broke out pitted some of Congress's most prominent proponents of sustainable transportation against each other and ended with $200 million less for livability initiatives -- money that would have been used to help states coordinate transportation, land use, and conservation policy. That funding was proposed by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Portland Congressman Earl Blumenauer. Fighting fiercely against it were Congressmen Peter DeFazio and James Oberstar. As chronicled by the League of American Bicyclists' Andy Clarke, this wasn't a fight about substance -- all four have been champions for livability, overall -- but about process and turf.

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Four House Republicans yesterday joined 24 Democratic colleagues in a letter praising Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for his public support of federal bicycling and pedestrian investment — a stance that had generated some bad blood between LaHood and the trucking industry.

GOP Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michael McCaul (TX), Jack Kingston (VA), and Steven LaTourette (OH) signed on to the letter, which was sent to LaHood late yesterday in advance of today’s Bike to Work Day events in the capital.

Referencing LaHood’s March policy statement urging state and local transportation planners to put cyclists and pedestrians on the same footing as drivers in designing new infrastructure, the lawmakers wrote:

We recognize, and appreciate, that your statement was not about
providing equal amounts of funding to all forms of transportation, or
prioritizing bicycling and walking over other transportation modes such
as trucking, freight or public transit. Instead, your commitment to
consider all modes clarified that to give citizens a choice, rather
than forcing them into their car, we must make sure that bicycling and
walking are as safe and convenient as other modes.

LaTourette’s endorsement of that federal embrace of bicycling and pedestrian access is particularly notable. He initially echoed the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Trucking Association in chiding LaHood for the non-binding bike-ped statement, wondering "what job is going to be created" by bike lanes before later walking back his remarks.

The House GOP quartet’s show of force for non-motorized transport projects also separates them from a recent Senate Republican report that criticized bike-ped stimulus spending as a waste of taxpayer funds.

A complete copy of the letter, also signed by House transport committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), is available after the jump.

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The process of expanding the federal government's definition of "affordable housing," a stated goal of the Obama administration's sustainable communities effort, began in earnest yesterday with the introduction of a new index that integrates transportation prices into the cost of living for hundreds of metro areas.

The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, assembled by the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), offers details on housing and transport bills for prospective residents of more than 300 metro areas.

But the index also aims to give an updated look at the scarcity of affordable housing. Almost seven out of 10 American neighborhoods are considered affordable using the current federal metric -- that housing should cost no more than 30 percent of income. When the CNT added transportation to the mix, however, for a combined metric of 45 percent of income, the number of affordable neighborhoods dropped by 30 percent (see graphic at right).

"By only focusing on" the 30-percent metric, CNT President Scott Bernstein told reporters, the government "has created an incentive for people to seek out locations where they can meet that goal without taking into account the almost equal cost of transportation."

The index, he added, "show[s] that as people move further out seeking cheaper and cheaper housing, the costs of transportation increase."

The new data is also aimed at encouraging the Obama administration to update its measurement of affordability, a goal embraced by the heads of the three agencies participating in the inter-agency sustainability work.

Ron Sims, the deputy secretary of Housing and Urban Development who leads that sustainability office, has said that $10 million of his initial grant funding would go towards expanding the market for location-efficient mortgages that include transportation costs in their estimates of borrowers' income.

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Last week, hundreds of bike advocates descended on Washington D.C. for the tenth annual National Bike Summit -- the largest one yet. Hosted by the League of American Bicyclists, the summit is always a great opportunity for advocates to share ideas and make the case for cycling on Capitol Hill. This year attendees encouraged their senators and representatives to sign on to several key pieces of legislation, including the Active Community Transportation Act, Safe Routes to School Act, and the Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act.

Streetfilms attended the summit and had the chance to talk to several participants. Check out this wrap-up for insight into some of the big bicycle initiatives happening around the country. You'll hear from conference host Andy Clarke, Representative Earl Blumenauer, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, the FTA's Peter Rogoff, and more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Addressing a packed house in Washington last night, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, posed a Zen-like 'universalist cyclist question'.

"How many people, right now," he asked, "are stuck in traffic on their way to ride a stationary bike in a health club?"

The quip got a big laugh. But at yesterday's launch of Cities for Cycling, a new project spearheaded by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), Blumenauer urged fellow cyclists to consider their cause "serious business."

The mission of C4C, as outlined by NACTO President Janette Sadik-Khan, is to collect and share best practices for the introduction of local bike lanes and other cycling infrastructure -- the type of strategies that have succeeded in cities but not yet been added to the Federal Highway Administration's traffic control manual, also known as the MUTCD.

"Some of the most celebrated and popular [bike] improvements are not even in the national guidelines," Sadik-Khan explained, adding that C4C ultimately aims to help develop "a new MUTCD, designed for cities, not highways."

The C4C kickoff, held in the shadow of the Capitol and sponsored by the Brookings Institution, was imbued with a sense of hope for future federal and local policies to encourage bicycling expansion. The Obama administration had a strong presence in the room, including Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff, befitting its public push for more sustainable community development.

Still, Blumenauer and Sadik-Khan emphasized that bolstering the uneven federal commitment to bicycling, and its urban benefits in particular, would require hard work and political organizing on the part of bike advocates.

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On the issue of clean transportation, from transit to bike paths to clean water, few members of Congress are as knowledgeable or active as Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). Chief of the Congressional Bicycle Caucus and founder of the new Livable Communities Task Force, the Portland lawmaker is on the front lines of Washington’s biggest infrastructure debates. Streetsblog Capitol Hill spoke with him yesterday about the prospects for transportation in the coming jobs bill, which he has said could be paid for in part with Wall Street bailout money. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion.

SCH: There is a growing focus on Capitol Hill on new infrastructure investments as part of a jobs bill that moves separately from the six-year transportation bill. What are your thoughts on the merits of moving on new spending versus a broader long-term bill?

EB: There is a terrific and very important complementary opportunity. Make no mistake, we need to have a six-year blueprint for how we rebuild and renew America for transportation. We’ve got a lot of work that has been done for last two-and-a-half years by the transportation committee; they’re in the home stretch. Literally, in a month, they could have a finalized version [of a six-year federal bill] and work it through with the administration, send it over to the Senate.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be looking for opportunties to put people to work tomorrow, and the two are not by any stretch of the imagination mutually exclusive. We have so many transit agencies with deferred maintenance [needs], so many bridges that are functionally obsolete or dangerous.

I recently finished a conversation with Gov. [Ed] Rendell [D-PA], and the opportunities in his state are amazing. Lieutenant Gov. Dick Ravitch in New York, he’s got literally billions of dollars of things that need to be done. I’d be prepared to argue that we should go ahead with a big, comprehensive transportation bill, but there’s no reason we cannot put money out the door, literally within weeks, that can put tens of thousands of people to work in virtually every state in the union within a matter of months. Done right, the [two bills] will complement each other.

SCH: Clearly speed is a big concern, given that the goal is to put people to work quickly on projects. But we saw a lot of, for example, paving projects funded by the stimulus that may have created jobs but didn’t address larger problems with crumbling infrastructure. To what extent should the quality of transportation projects, and the need for a "fix-it-first" requirement, be a factor?

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