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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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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?

Editor's note: Today we have a guest post from Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who has represented Oregon's 3rd Congressional District since 1996. He is the lead sponsor of the House's "CLEAN TEA" climate legislation and founded the Congressional Bicycle Caucus.

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."

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Appearing this morning at the release of a new report on transportation's role in fighting climate change, House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) challenged the Obama administration to back up their emissions rhetoric with action and pass his six-year, $450 billion infrastructure bill.

After U.S. DOT deputy secretary John Porcari and Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff delivered laudatory remarks about the Moving Cooler report, a joint project of government agencies and environmental groups, Oberstar took the stage with pointed words for the two senior officials.

"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."

Leaders of the House transportation committee, doggedly pursuing a six-year, $450 billion infrastructure bill this year, pressed their case this morning before Ways and Means Committee colleagues who must approve a new funding mechanism for their massive legislation.

"We should have indexed a long time ago the highway user fee" -- also known as the gas tax -- transportation panel chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) told the Ways and Means revenue panel. "But that got lost in the process."

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.

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The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is about to unveil a massive bill that will re-authorize federal transportation programs for the next six years. The bill will also include funding for a large number of "earmarks," the congressional pet projects that can include everything from bike trails to Bridges to Nowhere.

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.

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...

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One of the big challenges that federal policymakers will soon have to address is how to pay for a new generation of transportation investment. The federal gas tax, pegged at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, just isn't up to the job in its current form. There's a whole range of ideas on the table to fix the problem, and in this week's StreetsWiki entry, John Boyle, advocacy director for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, points us to a potential revenue stream for transit, smart growth, and bike-ped projects:

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.