Category Archives: Transit

Road builder servant Walker may have a problem

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Gov.-elect Scott Walker, significantly beholden to road building interests, may have a big problem: the outlook for increasing highway funding on the federal level ain’t so great.

From Minnesota Public Radio:

Brookings Institute transportation policy analyst Robert Puentes said the Obama administration and the presumptive transportation committee chairman in the next Congress, Florida Republican Rep. John Mica, both oppose increasing the gas tax.

“And in fact the folks who’d been talking about it the most I think one of them is Mr. Oberstar,” he said.l “So, you’ve lost someone with all the technical and institutional knowledge his tenure on the committee, but you’ve lost one of those voices who was promoting this as the way forward, the gas tax idea.”

Minnesota this year received just over $550 million in federal gas tax revenue for roads and bridges.

Scott Peterson, the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s director of legislative affairs, said he is confident the state won’t lose any money — with one possible exception.

The federal highway trust fund is bankrupt because spending exceeds revenue. Congress has applied band aids sending general fund dollars to the fund.

Peterson isn’t convinced that will continue.

“Now again with perhaps a renewed emphasis on lowering the deficit I’m not sure we can continue to count on that,” he said.

The funding picture for transit is equally cloudy.

Will Walker raise state and local taxes to build bigger roads where they are not needed in order to repay his masters?

HNTB survey says Americans with transit like it

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A new HNTB survey finds that Americans who have access to transit actually like it.

PR Newswire reports that

According to the HNTB America THINKS transit survey, nearly 9 in 10 (87 percent) Americans who have access to public transportation where they work or live take advantage of it. In addition, almost 7 in 10 (69 percent) Americans feel there are many times when public transit is a better option than driving, and nearly three in ten of them choose higher gas prices (29 percent) and convenience (29 percent) as the biggest motivators for riding public transportation.

“Whether it’s buses, commuter trains, light rail or streetcars, public transportation is an essential element for our communities,” said Elizabeth Rao, chair public transit services for HNTB. “People like transit and successful cities deliver it.”

Approximately 1 in 4 respondents think the most valuable feature of public transportation is that it reduces traffic congestion (28 percent), or saves users money (24 percent), while about 1 in 7 (13 percent) say it’s most valuable feature is the environmental benefit.

“Healthy transportation infrastructure is economically and environmentally sound. It spurs job creation, stimulates the economy, reduces dependence on foreign oil and enhances quality of life,” said Rao. “Unfortunately decades of underinvestment have taken their toll.”

The nation’s largest public transit agencies face an $80 billion maintenance backlog just to bring their rail systems to a state of good repair. Within the next six years, almost every transit vehicle (55,000 vehicles) in rural America will need to be replaced.

Hellow, Wisconsin Department of Transportation and Milwaukee County! Are you paying attention? Both are severely underfunding transit and have been for years.

And is HNTB paying attention to itself? HNTB has not been a big transit friend in southeastern Wisconsin, first consulting on the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission study that recommended expanding freeways and then getting multi-multi-million dollar contracts on projects to expand those same freeways. (That’s a 10 on the ethical puke-o-meter, if you are keeping track.)

$78 billion needed to fix country’s transit systems

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And there is no real help in sight, according to the The New York Times.

Wow.

And in Wisconsin, we are expanding freeways instead of preserving transit. It is a really sick philosophy: transit riders can wait forever in the heat or cold for their bus; car drivers in their temperature-controlled vehicles should never be delayed at all on the freeway.

What would a basic ethics class make out of that one?

Wow! Feds finally get it!

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It’s amazing, but perhaps true: the importance of transit is beginning to dawn on federal officials an d.

This isn’t about high-speed rail or big new capital projects. Someone’s actually paying serious attention to the nuts and bolts of buses and (existing)  urban rail lines!

From the Dedham Transcript:

BOSTON — Federal funding to help operate cash-strapped transit systems like the MBTA will likely be on the table as billions of dollars of transportation spending are meted out by Congress, a top Obama administration transportation official said Wednesday.

“It’s been a challenge for mid-size systems in Cleveland to rural systems in the Dakotas to the big systems in the urban areas,” Therese McMillan, second in command of the Federal Transit Administration, told the News Service after delivering remarks at a meeting of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. “Everyone is really struggling.”

McMillan cited the national recession as a cause for stress of transit systems nationwide, and she noted that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 permitted 10 percent of capital transportation spending to be used for operating expenses, such as running trains and paying employees.

But McMillan remained mum on a proposal that would permit large urban transit systems to regularly spend more federal dollars on transportation operations, acknowledging the proposal, supported by Rep. Michael Capuano, but saying the Obama administration has yet to take a position.

On the other hand, McMillan pointed to a transportation authorization bill pending in Congress that would provide $2 billion to cover operating costs for transit systems, a proposal supporters say would stave off fare increases and service cuts. According to the bill’s preamble, 84 percent of federal transit systems have raised fares, cut services or have considered one of those actions since January 2009.

Under the bill, sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), federal transportation funds may be used to transit systems’ operating expenses in order to “restore a reduction in public transportation service and related workforce reductions” or to “rescind all or a portion of a fare increase.”

Cullen’s amendment would require layers of approval for transit funding

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State Rep. David Cullen (D-Milwaukee) just offered an RTA amendment that would require the funding raised in Milwaukee County to stay with the Milwaukee County Transit System for buses. The amendment would also require a binding referendum and the approval of the county executive and the County Board to take effect.

The full Assembly tabled his amendment. Cullen represents the district that includes Story Hill.