The Next Federal Surface Transportation Program

Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) Rep. John Mica (R-FL) Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) Rep. John Duncan Jr. (R-TN)

On Friday, chairman Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) and ranking member Rep. John Mica (R-FL) of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure issued a press release and held a news conference on their blueprint for the next federal surface transportation program, described in a new committee report. They were joined by chairman Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and ranking member John Duncan Jr. (R-TN) of the subcommittee on Highways and Transit. The event represents the kick-off for drafting the next iteration of the surface transportation bill, which typically sets priorities and secures funding for public works projects for a period of 5-6 years. Traditionally, it has also been a vehicle for members of Congress to "bring home the bacon" to their districts. This time, Oberstar and his colleagues want to use the opportunity to move away from prescribing specific projects (aka earmark pork) and toward a meritocratic system in which USDOT is instructed to evaluate competing grant applications. Those will have to be integrated into six-year strategic plans developed by the department and its counterparts at the state level, with annual performance metrics for each major project or program of smaller ones. It remains to be seen if members of the full House and Senate will be prepared to support this new philosophy. In the hope that they will, the report details substantial reorganization objectives for USDOT such that it can execute evaluate programs and award grants according to legally binding procedures. For example, it calls for a new infrastructure bank within USDOT endowed with at least $50 billion for the six-year period that the new bill is supposed to cover. This money would be used to support strategic, sustainable investments in transportation systems, specifically High Speed Rail and (connecting) local transit. This would segregate public transportation funding from that reserved for highways, at least at the federal level. This new mechanism could essentially solve the federal component of funding California's HSR project. In addition, there would be a new Office of Project Expediting and also an Office of Livability, presumably charged with enforcing appropriate environmental mitigation for affected residents. Secr. of Transportation Ray LaHood would like to focus his department on executing oversight of stimulus-related projects. He therefore asked Rep. Oberstar to extend current arrangements for 18 months by plugging a growing hole of at least $13 billion in the Highway Trust fund. However, Oberstar and his colleagues are unwilling to wait because they have concluded that the current system is broken.

The report's authors claim that over the past 30 years, many states simply haven't stepped up to the plate to fund their 20% of highway projects, never mind the 50% required until recently for rail and transit projects. As a result, available federal funds were not fully utilized. Perhaps the unspoken fear is that with the 2010 midterms approaching and the 2012 presidential election after that, any delay would make it even more difficult to pass legislation for a root-and-branch reorganization of USDOT. Of course, much the same is true of health care reform, financial re-regulation etc. The President's domestic agenda is already full, yet transportation infrastructure is a high priority in Congress. The committee report calls for a total spending volume of $500 billion through 2015, of which 10% would go into the aforementioned infrastructure bank. Federal and state governments combined currently spend around $85 billion a year on transportation infrastructure, a sum the committee says is too small to maintain and expand the nation's aging systems and structures. It would like to see the number ramped up to $225 billion and then held at that level for the next 50 years. To fund the federal portion of this substantial expansion, the report calls for both federal and state gas taxes to be roughly doubled. Republicans in particular will presumably resist legislative efforts to implement that, though they may soon face a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the US Senate. Note that raising gas taxes to help fund rail and transit infrastructure construction is reasonable in that it reduces the pressure to keep adding lane-miles highways which are more expensive per passenger-mile of capacity, require far more land and lock in the country's arguably excessive dependence on oil.

by Rafael

HSR News From Around the World

Some tidbits for the weekend:

• Portugal to move ahead with Lisbon-Madrid HSR line, slated for completion between 2013 and 2015. The ruling Socialist Party believes it has the funding in place, and though a defeat in upcoming elections might derail the plan, the Socialists currently lead the polls. My wife and I are planning a trip to Portugal later in the year, and we'll make extensive use of their existing train infrastructure.



• Rochester, Minnesota is getting serious about being part of a proposed HSR line from Chicago to the Twin Cities. The Mayo Clinic, a large employer in the town, is strongly in favor of Rochester's inclusion, but other cities in southeastern Minnesota want the HSR route to follow the existing Amtrak route.



• A Georgia Senate panel has endorsed HSR to Chattanooga - don't know much about this particular proposal, but it's good to see Georgia getting serious about HSR planning.



• The FRA got a strong response to a solicitation for interest in building HSR. The Transport Politic has a full list of those groups that submitted bids and plans.



• Also from The Transport Politic (that site is an amazing resource) comes word that the otherwise flawed Senate stimulus bill avoids cutting transit funds and includes the $2 billion for HSR funding that we'd supported. I expect that to remain in the reconciliation process with the House, although it would be good if the state stabilization funds are restored - if California doesn't get federal help to close the deficit, that will hinder HSR planning efforts and hurt transit more broadly around the state.

What's on your mind?

Tuesday Open Thread

I'm headed to Arizona for the holidays and will be back on December 29. So in the meantime we'll have a few open threads every other day to tide us over.

I wish I had more time to write about this, but Yonah has an excellent post on HSR privatization over at The Transport Politic. He looks over the two kinds of privatization - of infrastructure and of management - and concludes, rightly, that both are unworkable and unnecessary. With John Mica aggressively pushing privatization it is worth taking a close look at this and pushing back against ideologically-driven efforts to fix something that isn't broken. Public entities have had great success operating HSR around the world and the US should emulate that model.

One of the very first posts on this blog reached similar conclusions about HSR privatization. Worth a look.

Kicking and Screaming into the 21st Century

From the Overhead Wire comes this story about high speed rail advocacy from Rep. John Mica, R-FL:

The development of a high-speed rail network in the Northeastern U.S. should be the first step toward expanding and improving the nation's infrastructure, U.S. Rep. John L. Mica said at a conference Tuesday.

Speaking at the Dow Jones Infrastructure Summit, Mica, R-Fla., said the development of a high-speed rail network would transform the heavily traveled New York-to-Washington corridor and begin to ease the burden on congested highways.

The high speed rail initiative is a cornerstone of legislation co-sponsored by Mica, the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act would authorize more than $14.4 billion in funding for Amtrak, state passenger grants and high-speed rail over the next five years. The Rail Infrastructure Development and Expansion Act seeks to provide $24 billion in federal funds to build the high-speed network.

It's really, really, REALLY good to see Republicans like Mica stepping up on high speed rail. Earlier in the month we saw two Democratic Senators forcefully speak up for HSR and the Passenger Rail Investment Act, so it's good to see Republicans getting in on the act. Of course, Mica wasn't done:

In response to a suggestion that the Air Transport Association - a trade group for the U.S. airline industry - would not support such a proposal, Mica underlined the urgent need to update the rail system.

"We'll drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century," he said.

Right on. It is gratifying to see more politicians realizing that the airline industry is not in a position - and should not be in a position - to block HSR projects. This isn't early 1990s Texas. The airlines, along with politicians and the media, need to be dragged into the 21st century, whether they kick and scream or not.

The more politicians who speak up like this, the more the media will come to realize that HSR's time has come. Hopefully that might mean less ridiculous questions about ridership and funding projections, and more of a focus on our massive infrastructure, energy, and environmental needs. If even Republicans from Florida understand the need for HSR, well, there's hope for this country after all.