Earl Blumenauer takes the podium at Rail~Volution, while moderator Grace Crunican of BART, APTA President Bill Millar, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (not pictured) stand by. Photo by Clarence Eckerson, Jr.

“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.”

Source: Donald Shoup

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.)

Rep. Earl Blumenauer announces the introduction of the Commuter Relief Act outside a metro station. Photo: Meghan Cahill/League of American Bicyclists

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.

“What we need to do is to be able to help American commuters break the tyranny of the pump,” Blumenauer said today at a press conference at the Capitol South metro station outside the House of Representatives office buildings. He said the bill would give people choices to reduce their costs of commuting, but reminded his audience that long term, the challenge was to provide better transportation choices. One man standing behind Blumenauer held up a sign with the words “Going to work so I can pay to get to work” in a circle with a slash through it.

One of the innovations of Blumenauer’s bill is that it acknowledges that people get to work different ways different days. Under the current law, commuters need to choose a transit, parking, or bicycle benefit. In the new bill, they can mix and match. They can take the $40 bike benefit and also combine it with a $160 transit benefit, up to the $200 total cap.

The cash-out option is the key to allowing that kind of flexibility. Rather than forcing commuters into a rigid program of just driving or just taking transit, it can put $200 in their pockets for whatever transportation costs they encounter – whether it’s bus fare, parking, new tubes, or Gatorade for the long ride. The chart above, which parking expert Donald Shoup of UCLA printed on Streetsblog last fall, shows the power that a parking cash-out can have in shifting transportation choices.

Blumenauer asserts that the bill is deficit-neutral, since the small reduction in parking benefits makes up for the increase in other benefits. And he says that the benefits aren’t just a pat on the back for people already using transit and bicycles. From Blumenauer’s office:

A recent study by Newsweek found that one in five employees changed how they commuted when their employer offered a commuter benefit program. Given that a three percent reduction in commuting trips results in a 39 percent decrease in congestion, reducing commuting trips during peak times, through vanpooling or transit, is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways to increase road capacity.

Bike to work and your commuter benefit could pay for dry-cleaning bike grease out of your suits. Photo: Ray's Life Cycle

Not every automobile commuter gets monetary parking benefits, of course. Yes, in some dense, urban areas like New York or D.C., employers can directly help employees pay for parking in public lots. But in smaller cities and suburban areas, drivers can usually just pull right into the office lot for free. If a commuter wanted to “cash out” that parking benefit under the bill, experts say the IRS requires employers to quantify that in-kind payment to determine how much the cash equivalent would be.

Blumenauer gestured at a massive free parking lot for Capitol employees just behind the House office buildings.

“I invite you to think about how much it costs the federal government to provide free parking here to thousands of people on Capitol Hill,” Blumenauer said. “If we give commuters more choices, we will end up reducing the pressure. If we gave our employees here the choice of a transportation benefit to rent a space here or down the street or transit or cycling, we could cut the cost to the federal government of maintaining some of the most expensive real estate in Washington D.C. for all these people that are clogging the roads every day. Think of the uses for this expensive real estate.”

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.

Congressmen Oberstar and Blumenauer, here speaking together at the 2007 Bike Summit, were on opposite sides of a dispute about increased funding for livability programs yesterday. Photo: Bike Portland

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.

Oberstar chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, while DeFazio chairs its Highways and Transit Subcommittee. That makes them authorizers, in charge of writing policy. While the line between authorizing and appropriating can be fuzzy, DeFazio and Oberstar don't want federal transportation policy to be written through the appropriations process, so they were willing to kill the livability funding, even if they may have supported it on the merits, in order to prevent a precedent from being set.

DeFazio's amendment to strip the $200 million from the appropriations bill passed, suggesting that even relatively inexpensive changes to federal transportation policy will have to wait for the next reauthorization bill.

Other attempts to change established policy by slashing funding were denied. Congressman Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican, unsuccessfully tried to forbid any funding at all to go to bike paths, according to Clarke. An amendment from GOP rep Michelle Bachmann to eliminate Amtrak also went nowhere.

Four junior Democrats, Gary Peters, Jim Himes, Peter Welch, and John Adler, prepared an amendment to cut the bill by over $1 billion -- including a chunk of funding for high-speed rail -- but ultimately did not put it forward after a sustained push by the House leadership made its passage unlikely, according to Politico. A similar set of spending cuts proposed by Iowa Republican Tom Latham failed by 30 votes.

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-VA), left, in the "congressional ride" during March’s National Bike Summit. (Photo: bikeleague via Flickr)

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.

Dear Secretary LaHood:

We would like to thank you for the Department of Transportation’s release of the “Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation, Regulations, and Recommendations” announced on March 15. We support the policy statement’s declaration that bicycling and walking are efficient modes of transportation that have an important positive impact on our communities.

We were pleased to see the policy statement’s acknowledgment of bicycling and walking as an important part of the transportation system. Bicycling and walking serve as cost-effective solutions to many of the serious issues facing our transportation system, including traffic congestion, funding concerns and air pollution. Moreover, as 40 percent of trips taken in our country are two miles or less, bicycling and walking should play an important role in providing transportation options in our small towns, suburbs and cities.

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.

We also appreciate the recognition of bicycling and walking as useful tools to address many other issues facing our nation such as increased oil consumption, air pollution, and our growing national debt. Investments in bicycling and walking have been shown to bring significant economic development to communities across the country, and to help families lower their own transportation costs. We believe that communities should be able to move forward with projects they feel are most advantageous to them, including bicycle facilities and pedestrian infrastructure.

We hope to continue to see bicycling and walking as a central part of your livability initiative. Thank you for all of your hard work on this issue. We look forward to working with you in the future.

Comparing the transportation savings in dense versus dispersed neighborhoods for a dozen U.S. metro areas. (Chart: CNT)

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.

(Source: CNT)

"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.

Sims, who joined Bernstein yesterday to discuss the CNT report, observed that the number of mortgage defaults during the current housing crisis was exacerbated because homeowners "did not realize they had a transportation cost burden and a mortgage."

The CNT also pinpointed another legislative goal for its index: enacting legislation requiring real estate agents, landlords, and other housing brokers to publicly disclose neighborhood transportation costs when marketing a property. Bernstein told reporters that Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) would introduce a bill proposing that change in the coming days.

Measuring the combined local burden of transportation and housing costs could influence more than just the mortgage market and government housing policy. Randy Blankenhorn, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, said the CNT index helped planners in his area make difficult decisions on how to use their available funding for new transportation projects -- which totaled just 2.7 percent of this year's revenue. (The remainder of revenue went to maintenance of existing infrastructure, he added.)

Blankenhorn predicted that the CNT index could help urban officials focus on a transportation agenda that's "not just about [fighting] congestion, but about bringing people closer to jobs."

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.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus. (Photo: NYT)

"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.

Photo: Cities for Cycling

"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.

The congressman vowed to push for a "quantum increase" in bike investments as part of the next six-year federal transportation bill (which remains stalled on the Hill) and touted his proposal to add high schools to the U.S. DOT's Safe Routes to School program.

The transport commissioner, meanwhile, focused her attention on a topic that may sound familiar to Streetsblog Capitol Hill readers: Washington's molasses-slow acknowledgment of the infrastructure challenges that cities face.

"We've become a metro-focused country, and that trend will only continue," Sadik-Khan said. "It's great news, but ... we're still working with federal policies that date back to the 1950s."

Transportation reformers' strongest federal strategy, she joked, is the indefatigable Blumenauer himself.

How, then, can cyclists bring the Portland Democrat's 534 congressional colleagues on board for an evolution in federal bike policy? Most of the audience's questions focused on local access issues -- including a plea for Brookings to back up its sponsorship of the event with better bike parking of its own -- but one attendee asked Blumenauer about the cultural clash between drivers and cyclists over payment of gas taxes to maintain roads.

Blumenauer began by noting that while conservatives like to decry bike spending as wasteful, "there are more requests for those evil earmarks for bike-ped facilities than anything else" in transport legislation.

But he added that "investments from the bicycling community" to help pay for better road quality and more bike infrastructure might be a smart move. "In fairness," Blumenauer said, "we'd be better off if we had a tiny fee" on some cycling equipment, such as a bike tire tax.

A serious suggestion for the "serious business" of strengthening bike policy -- but the C4C launch wasn't all politics. David Byrne began the evening with a quirky slideshow of cities he has biked in recent years, touching on some of the themes of his new book, "Bicycle Diaries."

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) (Photo: CAP via Flickr)

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?

EB: Fix-it-first should be the watchword, so that we’re dealing with areas that are the higher priority. I personally wouldn’t have rushed things through quite as quickly as what happened last winter, 10 months ago. We had an opportunity [with the stimulus] — people wanted to do good work, and they wanted to make sure things were done quickly. Those don’t always align, but as a practical matter, all the evidence suggests [the stimulus] made a big difference. Ironically, people are criticizing it for not having as much impact as they maybe would like, but 40 percent of this whole package was dealing with tax adjustments, tax cuts and the alternative minimum tax. Only about 4 percent of the total package was real bricks and mortar infrastructure, which created 26 percent of the jobs.

But you need a predictable blueprint going forward, not something that’s stop-and-start, ‘hurry up now and there will be something in six months when the money runs out’. We need the overall picture, and some guidelines that hopefully put more of that money back in our metro areas, not just have it captured at the state level. Some states were pretty good at [apportioning transport aid], other states had different priorities that didn’t include spending it quickly or weren’t necessarily putting it where there was the greatest need.

This is an ongoing problem, by the way — Texas has been concerned about being a "donor state" [in terms of the federal gas tax], but the Dallas metro area … last I checked, Dallas was getting back 78 cents [from the state] for every dollar they invested in transportation. The metro areas are being, frankly, shortchanged even though they’re the areas where congestion is worst, where there is the most concentration of jobs and where infrastructure movement creates bottlenecks and difficulties in moving freight. There are things we can do with this pack to focus its delivery, I think, learning from the [first stimulus]. 

SCH: It sounds like you see "fix-it-first" having a role to play in the package, in terms of choosing projects on a merit basis.

EB: We need to have a certain degree of flexibility. You want to set goals and guidelines to have people held accountable; there’s no reason that we can’t condition some of this [on whether] people are going to use this money effectively to solve transportation problems … the American Society of Civil Engineers has graded our national infrastructure a D. They think it’s going to take 25 years [to make necessary repairs]. There’s no reason we we shouldn’t be able to do this.

SCH: Let’s talk about how to pay for this. You’ve proposed to use unspent bailout money, and there’s support for it on the Senate side, but signs that the White House may not agree. Do you think the president can be convinced?

EB: I think the White House is going to be facing some very real challenges with the depth of the economic hole we’re in. I think people, frankly, understated the problem last time [during the stimulus debate]; remember, in the House, we wanted to do a bigger bill. We’re moving into a period where the size of the deficit is going to loom larger and larger as an area of concern. Putting together a package that combines maybe a little of this money that would otherwise go to Wall Street, giving it to Main Street, I think it has great appeal.

If Congress does its job by advancing a broader agenda and a reasonable mechanism for financing it, then it’s kind of, well, the other players can put up or shut up. We can set the stage and move forward.

The job piece of this equation has continued to haunt us for the last year. This so-called jobless recovery suggests it’s going to [linger into] next year as well. We’re likely, in the summer, to have double-diitg unemployment even if everything works right. Construction unemployment, I’m hearing from the national numbers something like 18 percent, but if you look at the regions … we’re looking at big numbers this next year: 25, 30 percent or more unemployed.

SCH: Which segues into another aspect of the funding — how much of this jobs package can, or needs to be, offset [by spending cuts elsewhere in the budget]. Blue Dogs in the House and some Democratic senators are likely to push for that.

EB: Part of this is smoking people out. There are some people who are all in favor of big authorization [bills] but a little shy about putting money on the table.

There is a consensus in America that people care enough about improving their quality of life, protecting the environment, strengthening roads, transit, parks, bridges, parkways. We could focus entirely on clean water — this has overwhelming public support. Frank Luntz [a longtime Republican pollster] did the most recent poll I saw in this area, and found a majority of Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike would increase their taxes to pay for infrastructure.

Ronald Reagan understood and supported a nickel-per-gallon gas tax increase, back when that was a big chunk of money, in the mid-1980s. There are any number of mechanisms. There is the transactions fee that Prime Minister Gordon Brown mentioned in Great Britain last month. There is a broad range of interests and individuals that want to be a part of [expanding] infrastructure and want to [do so] without increasing debt.

If we embark upon an aggressive program of rebuilding and renewing America, everything from high-speed rail to bridges to streetcars to parks and water, it’s going to generate huge amounts of other economic activity. It’s going to create tax revenue, going to put people to work. Our models don’t pick that up [by using] present-value accounting, the tangible effects of making our transit systems more efficient, converting our public facilities from energy sinks, cleaning up Superfund sites where the contamination is in danger of getting worse. The evidence is compelling that strategic infrastructure investment really sparks and leverages other expenditures.

Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer is one of Capitol Hill's strongest voices for walking, biking and transit. Soon after arriving in Congress in 1996, he started the Congressional Bike Caucus, now more than 160 members strong, and he's the founding chairman of the House's new "Livable Communities Task Force," which he announced two weeks ago here on Streetsblog.

Blumenauer's bike commute to the Capitol has become as much a personal hallmark as his predilection for bowties. So when he came to New York this weekend to stump for a progressive federal transportation bill, the congressman didn't pass up the chance to tour our city's evolving bike infrastructure with Paul Steely White and Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives. Clarence Eckerson and his camera were there too, of course.

Watch this Streetfilm to hear Blumenauer's thoughts on the big federal transportation bill, the emergence of a national movement for safe biking and walking, and the difference between protected bike lanes and regular old Class 2 facilities. Then ask yourself: When will we get to see a rep from New York City walk, bike, or ride the bus with Clarence?

Rep. Earl Blumenauer. Photo: Airdye.com

With much excitement, today we are launching the Livable Communities Task Force -- an official initiative of the House Democratic Caucus that will work to improve community livability and Americans’ quality of life.

This means reducing the nation’s dependence on oil, protecting the environment, improving public health and investing in housing and transportation projects that create jobs and give people more commuting choices.

As Chairman of the Livable Communities Task Force, this is an exciting moment for me. When I first came to Congress 13 years ago, people sometimes looked at me funny when I used the term “livability.” They had no idea what I was talking about. Today, not only are blogs like yours dedicated to transportation, infrastructure, and livability, but other leaders in Washington are talking about how to make our communities more livable.

The Obama administration is leading on this issue, having recently established the Partnership for Sustainable Communities with six “livability principles” for coordinating policy across the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

What a difference a year makes.

The Task Force is made up of 20 members from around the nation who are leaders on everything from transportation and building efficiency to renewable energy and community gardening. In the coming months, we will work with members of the administration to hold briefings and strategy sessions on everything from the livability provisions in the energy and climate legislation that passed the House to the pending transportation re-authorization.

After spending a lifetime in public service working to make our nation’s communities more livable, it feels like the pieces are coming together. America was ready for change when President Obama came into office. It is exciting that in 10 months we have moved legislation that will rein in global warming pollution. With the leadership of Secretary LaHood and Chairman Oberstar, we are gearing up for a transportation bill that will make smart investments in low-carbon transportation, give people more commuting choices, and reduce America's dependence on oil.

It is an honor to lead this unique Task Force and, and I am eager to work with Congressional leaders and members of the administration who are committed to protecting our environment and making our communities safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

The Congress for the New Urbanism will meet in Portland, Oregon, in early November for the annual Project for Transportation Reform, a summit to further define emerging policies that embrace entire urban transportation networks, rather than disjointed transportation segments, and that seek to balance modal splits and reduce overall vehicular miles traveled (VMT).

Summit attendees and partners, including Streetsblog, will participate in discussions on emerging network planning and develop a strategy for informing the national transportation infrastructure debate, of particular significance as climate and transportation bills move forward. As the draft CNU Statement of Principles on Transportation Networks [PDF] notes, climate change and infrastructure problems in the U.S. continue to intensify:

The US now has the world's highest level of VMT per capita, while simultaneously experiencing the highest traffic fatality rates of any developed nation. Per capita traffic delay has more than doubled in the United States since 1982. This deterioration in transportation system performance has occurred in spite of an ongoing public investment of more that $200 billion per year in transportation infrastructure."

CNU President John Norquist said the current focus by transportation professionals on road capacity gives us cities like Detroit, where consistent spending to widen roads has destroyed communities.

"Federal and state DOTs don't understand how cities work. They still want to take rural forms and jam big roads into cities." he said. "Rather than measuring projected traffic flow, they should be measuring how much value it adds to a neighborhood. The U.S. can't afford to be energy-wasting and spending money on projects that destroy the value of neighborhoods."

U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer will kick off the summit and representatives from Oregon Metro will showcase the many innovative transportation and design policies they have implemented in the region that have given Portland one of the highest walking, transit, and bicycle mode shares in the country.

Summit organizers hope to develop the language around network-wide transportation reform so the CNU can persuade lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to incorporate this new urban vision into upcoming climate and transportation legislation.

Marcy McInelly, co-chair of the CNU's transportation reform initiatives and principle of Sera Architects, said, "Reform is about giving more latitude to use highway funds for pieces of the network that may not be for highways. Right now the federal funds have to increase vehicular mobility, which raises VMT. If you had a funding formula that allowed you to count benefits to cost, it would almost always [result in] the other modes besides cars coming out [as] more beneficial. It would balance consideration of other modes."

Norquist said the CNU is working with the Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE), the most significant body of professional transportation engineers in the country, to develop transportation standards that raise the profile of urban streets to match that of rural roads and freeways in guides like AASHTO's Green Book for highway and street design.

According to Norquist, reform initiatives should focus on altering "the functional classification system. The current regulatory framework tries to feed future traffic demand, instead of trying to facilitate the network."

Referring to the traditional advocacy position that tries to chip away at the 80-20 funding formula (80 percent of federal funding for freeways, 20 percent for transit), Norquist said a more fundamental change is needed.

"We're completely for the idea of changing the 80-20 split. But even if the environmental community wins and gets 25-75, you're still spending 75 percent of the money on road capacity. They should focus on creating roads that are useful and pleasant and create a place where people actually want to be."

Norquist also promised the conference would be fun. "This conference will have the most dynamic and exciting traffic engineers in the world," he said, with a laugh. "These are the reform traffic engineers, the recovering traffic engineers."

The Project for Transportation Reform with take place from November 4-6 and registration is still open. Streetsblog will be covering the summit with regular stories and tweets, so stay tuned.

FTA's Peter Rogoff (in hard hat) heard strong words from Rep. Oberstar today. (Photo: WP)

"They need to ... catch up with the House" on transportation policy-making, Oberstar said of Porcari and Rogoff, who were sitting within spitting distance of the chairman.

"If you don't pass our bill, you're not going to get a head start on these strategies" for reducing the carbon footprint of the transportation sector, Oberstar told the White House aides.

He added: "The president gets it -- the crowd around him doesn't."

The White House continues to press for an 18-month postponement of the next long-term transportation bill, which Oberstar asserts could drag reform past the two-year mark and continue an inequitable system that favors new highway construction over transit. 

"When highway planners sit down to build a roadway," Oberstar said today, "they don't go through the gymnastics of a cost-effectiveness index," as transit planners are currently required to do. "They sit down, get the money, and build a road."

Expanding transit, the House chairman concluded, is difficult "if you've got a millstone around your neck."

Yet the House bill has a millstone of its own obstructing movement: the lack of revenue to fund a doubling in new transit investment and other Oberstar priorities. As Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) acknowledged this morning, hiking the federal gas tax -- which has remained at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993 -- will not be feasible until the recession dissipates.

"We are going to raise gas and diesel taxes sometime in the next decade," Blumenauer said, but "not while the economy is in freefall."

On transport funding, a question looms: Whither Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY)? (Photo: BusinessWeek)

Oberstar asked Ways and Means members to okay a $3 billion patch for the highway trust fund, which is expected to run dry next month.

That course would postpone until September the House's transportation-funding battle with the White House and the Senate, where 18 months of stopgap funding is almost certain to be approved within two weeks.

Ways and Means has dedicated most of its time and energy to health care reform this summer, leading to widespread speculation that transportation would fall by the wayside. But Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), chairman of Ways and Means' revenue panel, told Oberstar that he was on the transportation committee's side.

"I share your position that we should go forward" with a bill this year, Neal told Oberstar.

Yet the chairman of the full Ways and Means committee, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), has yet to throw his weight behind Oberstar's goals. Without Rangel's muscle, the thorny question of how to pay for a new transportation bill would be almost impossible to resolve by the end of September.

Despite the uncertainty over revenue, one conclusion was endorsed by liberals and conservatives alike: the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon "is basically dead," in the words of the transport committee's senior Republican, John Mica (FL).

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who proposed legislation today that would set up nationwide pilot programs on a future vehile miles traveled (VMT) tax, echoed that sentiment.

"We don't have enough money to even fund our current inadequate transportation system," Blumenauer said. "The highway trust fund is in a death spiral."

Mica suggested replacing the cents-per-gallon gas tax with a flat sales tax on gas purchases, while Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) proposed forcing Congress to act by timing the highway trust fund to expire outright in 30 months.

Several other lawmakers looked to freight rail to pay for and expand transportation capacity.

Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL) touted his bill to provide tax credits for companies that build new freight tracks or terminals. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) suggested levying a freight fee of 0.075 percent per shipment, with a maximum of $500, on goods that arrive at the nation's ports.

"You can't find a greener transportation mode than rail," said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), another freight fan.

The testimony from transportation committee members gave today's hearing a palpable sense of urgency, but that may not be enough to surmount opposition from the Obama administration and the upper chamber of Congress.

With the House set to depart next week for a month-long recess, the clock is running out -- and a decision is imminent on whether to pass Oberstar's $3 billion patch or move closer to the Senate's $26.8 billion highway trust fund rescue.

Earmarks grew largely in the shadows until a series of pet project-related ethics scandals rocked Washington earlier this decade, helping the Democrats take control of Congress amid promises to make the process more transparent. Still, the House transportation committee is taking a looser approach to earmark openness this year: instead of requiring members of Congress to pose their earmarks early, the panel is merely encouraging members of Congress to do so.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) isn't ashamed of his earmarks. (Photo: Washington Post)

So how can activists on the local level find out whether their local representative is backing big highways or light rail? The Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group based in Washington, has pored over the websites of all House members to see who followed the transportation panel's optional deadline.

Sadly, only 83 lawmakers are letting the public see their transportation earmark requests, compared with 321 who heeded the binding transparency rule followed by the House Appropriations Committee. (The House has 435 members in total, but some swear off earmarks entirely.)

Sunlight's list of transportation earmarkers can be found here. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), co-leader of the Congressional Bicycle Caucus, has an impressive list of transit projects on his list. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is seeking more money for the Washington Metro's planned Purple Line and to expand transit options for Southern Maryland.

On the flip side, two Republican members of Congress are catching some flak for their earmark requests. More on them after the jump...

Sunlight investigator Bill Allison spotted Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) requesting a hefty $83 million for Interstate 66 in his home district -- which really should be renamed, because it's unlikely to ever extend out of Kentucky. When a road project already has a website dedicated to its undoing, one suspects it's not the best use of taxpayer dollars. 

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) (Photo: whorunsgov.com)

Bachmann's office told the Star-Tribune that she held off because the state DOT has yet to endorse the Northstar expansion. Yet that delay was caused by the project's inability to meet federal cost-effectiveness standards that are long overdue for an update. Will Bachmann come around? She's already put in a call for five road and bridge projects in her state.

Is your local representative on Sunlight's list? If so -- whether their project is good, bad, or ugly -- let us know in the comments.

The decline in driving makes the gas tax less reliable as a transportation funding stream. VMT graph: FHWA.

The Clean Low-Emissions Affordable New Transportation Equity Act is a bill that sets aside revenue from a cap-and-trade program in a future climate bill towards green transportation projects that reduce greenhouse gases. CLEAN TEA was introduced in the House of Representatives in the 2009 session as H.R. 1329 and in the Senate as S. 575.

Under CLEAN TEA, ten percent of the revenue would be used to create a more efficient transportation system and lower greenhouse gas emissions through strategies including funding new or expanded transit or passenger rail; supporting development around transit stops; and making neighborhoods safer for bikes and pedestrians.

CLEAN TEA is contingent on some pretty big ifs, like whether a cap-and-trade program will make it through Congress. But the Obama administration projects raising $80 billion a year from auctioning off carbon emissions permits, and CLEAN TEA has sponsors from both parties in the House and the Senate, so this is definitely an idea with some momentum.

Moments after he delivered the keynote address to the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), Oregon's Rep. Earl Blumenauer, head of the Congressional Bike Caucus, met with us for this exclusive one-on-one chat.

Streetsblog Editor-in-Chief Aaron Naparstek talks with the congressman about the current federal stimulus bill and how advocates can better engage their leaders. Of the new White House team, which has not shown much energy in pushing transit or livable streets issues thus far, Mr. Blumenauer states:

Just because [people and advocates] may feel more comfortable with this administration -- it doesn't mean they should let up on the pressure.

Amen. With the big federal transportation bill coming up, this is an important year, people. Let that sentence stick in your noggin for the next 324 days.

Earl Blumenauer. Photo: New York Times

With an eye on the potential stimulus package, cycling advocates "have compiled a list of $2 billion of projects that can be under construction in 90 days," Mr. Oberstar said, adding that prospects are "bright."

We're putting calls in to congressional offices to find out more about how this potential funding would get distributed and what needs to happen to include it in the recovery package. The list Oberstar mentions may refer to the $3.4 billion in ready-to-go bike and pedestrian projects identified by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (click through for their petition).

Meanwhile, the House Republican leadership is making its transportation priorities clear. Here's Minority Leader John Boehner, quoted in the Hill:

"I think there's a place for infrastructure, but what kind of infrastructure? Infrastructure to widen highways, to ease congestion for American families? Is it to build some buildings that are necessary?" He stated. "But if we're talking about beautification projects, or we're talking about bike paths, Americans are not going to look very kindly on this."

Isn't this the same GOP that wants to re-establish its fiscally responsible bona fides? That will be a tall order as long as it's still the party of Patrick McHenry -- mocking a cost-effective transportation solution that will help Americans save money, while supporting exorbitant highway expansions that commit us to more spending on gas and huge maintenance obligations down the road.

Conventional wisdom held that front runners for transpo secretary were known progressive brands like Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Jim Oberstar. But that's not necessarily the case, reports Traffic World (via Bike Portland).

Transportation industry executives close to the Obama campaign, speaking on condition of anonymity, say it is more likely ... that the incoming administration will seek to put a new stamp on the department through new appointments less familiar to Washington's political establishment.

There is a wide array of transportation officials at the state and local level who could have a role at the top of DOT or in agency posts, including Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay area, and New York City Transportation Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan [sic]. 

Whether or not Sadik-Khan is tapped for the top job, sounds like change is coming.

Photo: Brad Aaron