"Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived? Part II"

-       by Eric Britton, 11 January 2009

New Mobility Partnerships, Paris and Los Angeles

I have been getting some pretty rough treatment from some of my most distinguished transportation colleagues concerning my earlier contribution to this panel under the heading of "Has mass transit finally arrived?" (22 December, see http:// nationaljournal.newmobility.org). I have no doubt I deserved it, but let me see if I can respond here to their three main challenges.

·         The first is that they assure me that my harsh words about the role of "mass transit" will serve to work against the important interests of improving public transportation at a time when it truly is a priority for public policy.

·         The second is that I appear to be pushing the service concepts behind the new mobility agenda as a substitute for public transportation as generally practiced and understood.

·         Third and last, they charge me with being unnecessarily contentious in my statements, and thereby running the risk of alienating many people and interests who after all should be part of the solution.

Let me comment briefly on each of these in order as part of the ongoing dialogue here:

1. The role of traditional mass (heavy) transit

Yes there is a role, an absolutely critical role for public transportation.  Of course there is.  But for transit to be fully effective this is going to take a lot of hard thinking and a pretty massive overhaul right down to its foundations.

My comments and recommendations here and in all my work are based on a common underpinning: namely that there is a relatively single central argument and focus behind all this.  And that is my sincere belief that the primary goal of public policy in the sector over the coming four years has to achieve very sharp traffic (VMT) reductions across the map and those as fast as possible.

What we have to understand is that this is the only policy that will allow us to move from what we have today to a more responsible, sustainable, and effective transportation system.  Sharp, rapid VMT reductions has to be the central acid test of public policy across the sector.

As you can well imagine this is going to prove very uncomfortable for many of the traditional transportation interests, which often are based on encouraging and supporting investments which in fact underwrite and expand vehicle movements as their basic underlying priority.  This is the way in which we oriented public policy over the last century, and while it worked wonders in many cases, we are now very much aware of the limitations of this approach.

So what I'm saying is that if your favorite project or investment is going to lead to more vehicle traffic, then the responsible policy maker has to have a very hard look at it indeed. Some people, some interests are going to find this very uncomfortable, but what I can say is that there can be no wise transportation policy in which all of the traditional players find themselves equally comfortable.   Comfort for all is not what responsible governance is all about.

This acid test leaves a very important role for public transportation in all its variants, though it also implies that if they are to be able to respond to the full challenge then the people responsible for them are going to have to be far more innovative and entrepreneurial in the future than they have been in the past.  Pouring more taxpayer dollars into outmoded organizational structures and services is not going to give us the results we so badly need.

Again, the position is that where you have the good luck of having a mass transit system already in place, the challenge is not only to improve it in terms of its economic and operational efficiency per se, but also that you start to see it and integrated as part of a much broader range of mobility services.  A variant if you will of the "no man is an island " theme.

2.  The role of new mobility services

My main point here wasn't his that for most Americans today there is a no-choice situation when it comes to how they can get around in their daily lives.  It's a car or nothing.  But this poverty of choice is not worthy of our great country and our great democracy, democracy being incidentally all about choices.  And it doesn't have to be that way.

The core of what some call "new mobility" is precisely one of choice.  Americans should be able to choose from a variety of transportation arrangements and not be prisoners of the present car-or-nothing situation.  Enhanced public transportation is going to have a critical role in the new multilevel mobility system, but there are many other proven ways of organizing mobility which can be developed and integrated into a multimodal transportation menu of many parts.

The common ingredients in the cookhouse of the new mobility agenda include innovation, entrepreneurship, participation, performance standards, and smart use of technology.  And every city, every community, will draw on and put these ingredients together in its own way.  Again, making their own choices.

It is often argued that when we start talking about things like demand management, restructured street access, BRT, fast-track LRT, carpooling, carsharing, cycling, public bicycle systems, shared taxis, improved support for safe walking, tele-solutions, integrated access systems, land use changes, and the like, that none of these are going to solve all our  transportation problems by themselves. Correct!  They are not in themselves "solutions"; rather they are parts of the solution, parts of the much broader package of services and choices which we are now in a position to make available to Americans in cities, towns and rural areas across the country.

The goal of public policy should be to support the diffusion of the best of these ideas and practices.

3.  A contest of ideas

My reading of this panel is that it's true usefulness to the incoming Obama team will not be as a collection of pre-set announcements from each of us stating our  positions and recommendations, even if they come from the quite wide range of interests and groups concerned . Of course it's important to hear all the voices as part of the process of understanding the full range of issues that need to be grappled with. But rather as I see it, we have come together here under the common roof provided by our friends at the National Journal in order to put our heads together to see if we can come up with something that is more than the sum of the parts.

To get to this we need to engage a dialogue among all these interests and encourage vigorous debate.  A real contest of ideas.

As I see it this is not a politically correct beauty contest from which all of the participants will go back home with identical first prize ribbons and an equal place in the public policy of the new administration.  That might be comfortable but it's my reading of the urgency situations that we currently are facing in this and other sectors that we need to make choices and in the process create a new and far more powerful and creative agenda for transportation in America.

I think that the issues and the outcomes are  important enough for each of us to say what we really think.  The best ideas will surely rise to the top.

So let’s keep going.

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Here is what William W. Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association, has to say:

There is no question that public transit has arrived.  

I have often said that the American people are way ahead of elected officials, and that is certainly true when we talk about public transportation.   Americans in small, medium and large communities are riding public transit at record levels. This trend started before gas prices skyrocketed, and has continued in the third quarter of 2008 with the largest percentage increase in riders in 25 years, even as gas prices decreased. Americans are also supporting increased investment in record numbers. In November, citizens approved 75% of the transit ballot initiatives, voting to tax themselves to provide more transportation options, even in the middle of the economic freefall. 

Why? They understand that we need affordable ways to get around. They understand that we need to eliminate the stranglehold that foreign countries have on us due to our dependence on their oil.   They understand that unless we reduce the amount of travel in cars, we will never be able to sufficiently reduce our carbon emissions. They understand our quality of life is dependent on not being stuck in traffic and that we have got to provide more and better travel options for older adults as well as future generations.

As we enter 2009 and this year of change, there is no better opportunity for Congress and President-elect Obama to listen to Americans and increase public transit investment.  I reject the notion that transportation investment is an either-or proposition, or highways vs. transit.  It is about our future, and what we want for our citizens and our country. This country is so far behind other countries in maintaining and investing in our infrastructure that we need the equivalent of another New Deal program to dig ourselves out of this hole. The economy recovery legislation could be a good first step; transit systems across the country have identified more than 700 projects that will create green jobs for Americans, reduce carbon emissions and start to wean us off of foreign oil. The surface transportation bill that expires in September 2009 will require a significant increase in funding for transit and is an opportunity to redefine our transportation priorities and set a clear policy direction.  

So, I would certainly say public transit has arrived, and with increased investment can contribute even more to an economically competitive America that is energy efficient and creates far fewer greenhouse gases.    

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The following was submitted by Jerry D. Ward, co-author, with Bill Garrison of Berkeley, of Tomorrow's Transportation: Changing Cities, Economies, and Lives:

Yes, there will be a lot of people turning 65 soon. But, outside of Manhattan, most folks really consider themselve old when they can no longer drive. I don't know the average age at which that happens -- I'd guess about 76, but even with the population aging, the ratio of non-drivers-because-they-are-old to active drivers is pretty small.

And is transit the right answer for this cohort of old-non-drivers? They do not want to walk even a block to a bus or transit stop to wait for the next vehicle. Maybe on a nice spring day. But some form of private transportation based on vans or cars is a much better solution for them, something that can provided at least semi-personal service. Dial-a-Ride? The Retirement Home Van?

There are good reasons that most people who can drive, do drive. The fact is that public transportation as we know it doesn't compete well with the car, and probably not at all for the impaired aged.

I submit that the real answer for the future is the car that can drive itself. Anyone can ride; "taxis" would be much less labor intensive and therefore much cheaper; and vehicles need not be multipurpose -- they can be tailoered to the specific job. And such cars are easily within our sights now. Because automated reflexes ar much faster than human reflexes, these vehicles can operate closer together safely, so they will also increase the carrying capacity of our streets and freeways.

 

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"Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived"? I for one certainly hope not. And since I may be the only voice here that expresses this view, I better be ready to justify it. Let’s try a better question.

"Has mass transit finally arrived" . . . is an example of a pretty good kick-off question. But as everybody knows one of the most useful attributes of a good question is that opens the way for something better, for example to a great question. In this case the great question is "Have viable new mobility options finally arrived"? There is a huge difference between these two questions and it is important that we understand what they are. After all, language counts.

To set the stage, a quick comment on that ringing phrase "mass transit". Before rushing out to pour many billions of dollars into this particular concept, we will do well to recognize that as a phrase, as a strategic response, it is a relic of another day, another way of thinking about cities. And indeed another way of thinking about people (mass?).

To the extent to which our mission here is to inform the incoming administration about transportation policy, we are honor bound to do our best to present them with ideas and perspectives that are fully appropriate to the highly challenged situation we face in the last years of this first decade of this very different 21st century.

We have a long way to go. Old thinking about transportation was never weaker, never worse than when it divided our choices into two and only two principal mobility options: the private car and "mass" or public transportation. It has been this basically binary, either/or, basically no-choice approach which has led to the altogether unsatisfactory situations which exist in most towns and cities across America. It does not have to be that way.

The largely unseen trap of using a phrase like "mass transit" to kick off these discussions is that it has the unfortunate effect of immediately narrowing attention to what has to be one of the least appropriate service responses to the challenges of our time. It would be a terrible thing indeed if we were to miss this rare opportunity to bring about much needed change, simply because we chose to call attention to the wrong approach.

Mass transit has indeed had its glory days. But truth to tell it is more a vestige of the past than an instrument of the future. To get a proper feel for what it is all about, let’s focus briefly on the “mass” of mass transit. If our goal for the next four years is to spend great wads of public money to build and operate heavy industrial systems built on 19th century principles and capable of channeling large volumes of people on schedule from a reduced number of origins to a small set of destinations, that might well be the way to go. However if we do that, we are going to be way out of step with the realities of our epoch. One way of saying this is that it offers an industrial solution to a postindustrial world.

The mobility pattern of the places in which more than 80% of all Americans live, work, study and play today has little in common with this kind of outmoded delivery approach of another age. We live in a world not only of many origins and many destinations, but also of many times.

The services we create and reinforce with ever scarcer public money are going to have to correspond with our needs and desires as they are playing themselves out in this new century. A very different pattern than the one that the old mass transit systems were designed to serve.

The word mass transit conjures up a bustling world of crowded subways and metros, screeching urban and commuter rail, chock-full tramways and LRT, and incomplete patchworks of scheduled, fixed -route bus services -- all overseen by public agencies and deficit financed through the ever-mounting contributions of hard-working taxpayers. Did anyone say a "great sucking sound"?

It also tends to conjure up some pretty big numbers: for example new subway systems costing billions, expensive hardware which gets used only a few hours a day, with the whole apparatus heavily subsidized not only for the original purchase and construction but also for day-to-day operation.

If you wish to start up a new subway or metro in most cities today, better be prepared to fork out something on the order of $1000 an inch to bring it to completion. That is a lot of money, and it does not take into account the cost of the years of traffic disruption which inevitably goes with such projects. Nor the steady flow of public subsidies that are going to be needed to keep it in operation for the decades to follow.

Beyond this, all those heavy rail systems not only take decades to plan and bring into operation, but once they have been laid they have of course zero flexibility. This is worrying if we consider that the economic and locational dynamics of our cities are evolving very rapidly and in ways which even our very smartest planners and PhD modelers cannot accurately forecast today.

We live in a world of rapid change and non-stop pattern breaks. So if the idea is to put a system in place which corresponds with our present perception of needs and priorities, the odds are awfully slim that 10 or 20 years hence these will still be the dominant patterns in place. That is likely to be a very costly mistake.

Mass transit was a great 19th-century solution which corresponded with the basic logistics, economic realities and social conscience of that era. Throughout the 20th century, especially as the dynamics started to change rapidly, the formula has been marked by some successes, and more failures. All at very high cost.

There are better ways of spending these hard-earned taxpayer dollars than rushing off to build costly new mass transit systems. And likewise for any strategy which has us pouring more public money into lots more buses which at the end of the day end up spending more time in traffic, as well as being substantially underutilized most of the time.

1. If you have it already in place, your main challenge is to get a lot better at using what you have in a cost-effective manner.


2. If you do not have it, forget about using scarce taxpayer dollars to build yourself a new one from scratch, because there are far better ways of getting the job done.

The challenges before the new administration to create transportation systems which corresponds to the needs of all Americans and the special circumstances of the 21st century are sufficiently great that we really have to make sure we use all of the available tools in our toolkit. And while the concept of traditional mass or public transportation gives us an initial impetus and a bit of a starting place, if that’s as far as we take it we will have failed in our task.

A radically different approach is needed, one which is increasingly called "new mobility". The critical underpinning of this approach is the acceptance that our goal has to be to create a wide variety of alternative ways of getting around the city which correspond better to people’s actual needs and preferences. New mobility is all about choices, choices made at the end of the day not by governments but by people..

A quick look first though at why so many of us think that having our own car is a great way to get around can help to set the scene. If we abstract from such minor inconveniences as steadily increasing traffic congestion, escalating costs of car operation, and the enormous environmental and social costs of an exclusively, or primarily, car-based transportation system, you have to admit that having something like your own car without all the hassles is a really great way to get around. It is a form of auto-mobility which corresponds in at least one fundamental way to our aborning 21st century, offering as it does a magic carpet of sorts on which you hop, go there, hop off all with great ease and even a certain sort of elegance.

So if auto-mobility is not so much a mortal sin as a decent human desire, the question becomes how can we accommodate this legitimate desire for auto-mobility -- or perhaps we will do better to call it first class transportation -- in our 21st century cities? Now that is an interesting question.

And one to which there is no single answer to it. Specifically in this context what we need and what we have in hand everything we need to create is a rich package, a spectrum of transportation services which combine great choice, sensible economics, greater environmental integrity, and solid business sense. All while working together synergistically to complete and reinforce each other.

The New Mobility Agenda

There is a long list of new mobility alternatives which we now need to better identify, improve, and bring to our towns and cities across America. The catalog includes considerable number of variations on services such as ridesharing, car and van pools, carsharing, premium and shared taxis, public and private bicycles, improved systems for safe and agreeable walking, community or small bus systems, smartcard paratransit, and the long list goes on.

Let me quickly sketch out three broad examples among many of how these new policies can be put to work in our cities to see if I can make this clear:

Building on the traditional concepts of scheduled, fixed route bus services, we are seeing that a great deal can be accomplished if we combine improved access through reserved lanes and streets with the latest in logistical and communications technologies so that these public vehicles are able to move more smoothly and efficiently on our streets. There are in fact quite a range of ways of handling it, of which the most talked about these days go under names such as BRT or bus rapid transit. But what these services really have in common, and what makes them effective, is that they combine new thinking, greater flexibility, new technology, and improved management techniques to get us away from the old syndrome of ever more buses stuck in ever more traffic, to a transportation system capable of holding up its end of the bargain.

The operational models and technology for are there and are already working just fine in many and diverse places. We know how to do it. So we should

2. New concepts of "intermediate transportation"

Here we have a considerable range of service types but just by way of example let us think in terms of something like 21st-century taxis. The great advantage of taxis is that in principle at least they provide highly flexible demand responsive systems which will pick you up where you are and take you to where (or near to where) to you want to go. There is no reason that such vehicles need carry only a single passenger, and indeed if they are to be part of a sustainable transportation system they must be able to respond to the need for affordable and convenient small group transport as well as offering premium service to those who are ready to pay for it. There are two tricks to making this work. The first is to create a fully flexible system of regulation, ownership and operations which will be able to respond to these new service patterns. The second is to load in state-of-the-art technology into these operations so that they can do the job that is needed. Every city will have its own way of approaching these challenges.

The operational models and technology for are there and are already working just fine in many and diverse places. We know how to do it. So we should

3. New concepts of cars.

No this is not about electric cars or hybrid engines or new fuels. It is about new ways of using cars both in cities and in lower density areas as well. There are number ways of going about this, but for the moment let us consider just that of carsharing.

Carsharing is an alternative system of car ownership, access and use. The costs and troubles of vehicle purchase, ownership and maintenance are transferred to a central group. One way or another you join a club and as a member have the right to take one of their cars and use it when and as you need it. Today there are more than a thousand cities in the world in which you can walk out on the street and pick up a carshare vehicle. What is most interesting about carsharing is not that all by itself reduces traffic -- after all there is still a car and a driver out there in traffic -- but that people who choose for their own reasons to use shared cars also tend to make considerably more use of public transportation, cycling, walking, taxis, and yes, believe it, even rental cars. So what of the end of the day is most interesting about the carshare option is that it gives us a trigger or pattern break and that it thus facilitates the move from a no-choice car-only transportation system, to a new mobility system which is more appropriate to the 21st century. And all that based on people's personal choices together with low or even no public investment.

The operational models and technology for are there and are already working just fine in many and diverse places. We know how to do it. So we should

Entrepreneurship and Operational Models

These new systems are sharply from the traditional models of management and operations which have generally characterized the transportation sector in the past. There is going to be a greatly expanded role for entrepreneurship and flexibility, and much of this is, if we are lucky, likely to come from the private sector.

But the private sector alone is not going to be able to come up with the right solutions for our cities by itself. It is one, a critical one at that, of at least three partners who need to be engaged and brought together to make these new systems work at their best. The now-old concept of public-private partnerships gives us the beginning of our model, but in the future we are going to have to step well beyond practices in this area as well.

If we look carefully at the leading examples around the world, we will see that there is on the one hand an expanded role for governance (and strategic thinking), which in most cases will devolve to local and regional government. There is also a greatly increased role for user and public interest groups of all kinds, who in our modern cities are becoming ever better organized and ever better prepared to participate in these partnerships.

What national and state organizations can do to help in this process is to use their legislative and financial means to provide a rich supportive environment for innovation and adaptation in the field. They can be at the leading edge, or lagging edge. It will be their choice.

Jobs and New Mobility

Let’s not forget about this aspect of the transportation challenge as we move toward record levels of unemployment which are being taken by the incoming administration as a major target for public policy.

For most of the last half-century the primary goal of innovation in the transportation sector, particularly in cities, has been to reduce costs. And since more than two thirds of all of the cost of running a city service relate to labor, the consistent trend has been to introduce technology and organizational techniques so as to "save labor". With the results that are there for all to see.

As the new administration sets out to "reinvent transport in America" to correspond with the special circumstances of this new century, it is worth drawing attention to the fact that a modern high-performance transportation system need not be "job-free" or "job-lite”. In fact what these various new mobility modes have in common is that not only are they loaded to the gills with new technology -- indeed to a system their performance keys on new logistics and medications technologies -- but they also need people to support those technologies and offer possibilities for higher skill, appropriately compensated jobs.

This is a rich area of public policy which until now has not been sufficiently explored, but with the incoming administration accepting the challenge of creating millions of new jobs for Americans, our sector is one in which there are not only many new ideas but also the potential for many new jobs. I very much hope we will explore this opportunity together.

We are now starting to get a feel for what the transportation systems of our cities are going to have to look like, and with it a number of clues as to what the new administration and transportation policy and to make it happen at its best.

The question that we have reflected on here asks about a transportation option that has “finally arrived”? This give one the impression that there has been something we were perhaps supposed to have done.

A report was published a full generation ago by a team at the Urban Institute in Washington DC under the title Paratransit: Neglected Options for Urban Mobility. It is interesting to think about it, a book that came out in 1974 which already set out many of these ideas. What is happened in all these years since?

While this concept has never entered into the mainstream of public policy in the United States, I am happy to be able to report however that there are quite a number of programs and projects around the world that are showing the way in terms of these innovations. (For more on this you are invited to consult the materials that have been gathered into the New Mobility Partnerships and website at www.newmobility.org. And from there to be extensive catalogues of programs and sources all over the world.)

And though there are large numbers of projects and services, businesses and technologies that correspond quite nicely to this title, the fact is that they have not as yet entered into the mainstream of American transportation policy and practice. So now is the time to start.

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Nancy LeaMond, AARP's executive vice president of social impact, submitted the following comments:

America is aging rapidly and transportation policy and spending must acknowledge this demographic shift.  In 2030 nearly 71 million people will have reached age 65+, doubling the retirement age population since 2000.  Seventy-eight million Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 began turning 62 this year and the last of this group will turn 65 in 2029.  

These Boomers have gotten what they wanted or needed for most of their lives—schools, jobs, and houses have changed to meet their needs and demands.  They will expect to remain mobile and safe as they age.  Raised in the suburbs, this first generation to drive to school as teens will be reluctant to hang up their keys.  In order to help them reach their goal of moving about safely into their 70’s, 80’s, and beyond, federal, state, and local policymakers need to improve the safety of roads, bridges, and sidewalks, but also improve the availability and accessibility of public transportation and paratransit services. 

 Public transportation rises in importance for many reasons.  To leave their cars behind, boomers will require the same level of convenience as they have had in their car-centered world.  If they don’t have access to dependable and affordable travel choices, they will be reluctant to “hang up the keys.”  Many boomers are seeing their parents face isolation as their fitness to drive diminishes and they won’t want to be similarly “stranded without options.”  The fact that men outlive their driving abilities by six years and women by ten is a sobering fact.

 A coordinated strategy of public transportation, paratransit, coordinated human services transportation, transit-oriented development, and “complete streets” sidewalk networks accessible to transit, can yield a multitude of benefits for people of all ages.  Within this framework, having robust public transportation can also be a benefit to regions seeking to revitalize urban cores and guide new development more smartly.  Transit-oriented development holds tremendous potential to provide places for boomers to safely age in mixed-use, walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods, but this will only happen if communities address housing affordability issues as well.

Across the U.S. numerous regions have bolstered public transportation, and these areas have seen ridership grow on both buses and railcars.  The American Public Transportation Association reports that public transportation ridership increased by 5.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008 as compared to the previous year and has increased 32% since 1995 which is double the population growth of 13%. Cities like Portland, Denver, Charlotte, and Tampa have all used transportation dollars to provide real alternatives to moving around in the community.  Factor into this volatile gas prices and the attractiveness of public transportation to boomers has ballooned.

 Meeting the needs of the boomer population with service and infrastructure improvements will also serve the population at large, for example by increasing service reliability, making stops and vehicles more accessible and user friendly, helping newcomers understand how and where to access schedules and their closest transit with easy to use information, training drivers to understand and pleasantly accommodate the limitations of aging and in some areas offering neighborhood circulators or door-to-door service to grocery stores or shopping malls.

 We know we are getting older, but research shows that transportation needs for present and future generations are only now showing up on policymakers’ radar screens.  We fully support using transportation funds to build and operate transit services to complement our existing road network.  Only then will all Americans be able to easily get to the places where they need and want to go.

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Here's why the answer is "yes" to more emphasis on transit relative to the last 50 years. We need to evaluate transportation infrastructure alternatives based on what demand will be like at project completion. Five to ten years from now we can predict that:

• even more people will be living in urban areas,
• a higher percent of our population will be older,
• the price of fossil fuel will be higher, and carbon will be taxed in some form.
• the cost of driving will be higher due to congestion and road pricing,
• the cost of parking will be higher.
• we will want a more diverse mode infrastructure to accommodate emergency situations.

In some more detail:

Demographics: Existing and increasing urbanization, as well as the aging baby boomers demand that we have more and better choices to meet the needs of these populations.

Economics: When gas is at $2/gallon, the average American household was spending 18% of its budget on their cars (Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2002). In low income populations, or among those who commute very large distances, this can rise to 30-40%. It will 25 years that it will take the American car fleet to switch over to fuel efficient or alternative fuel cars and we can predict that the price of gas will rise significantly in this period of time putting extreme pressure on household budgets.  We saw the clamor for alternatives when we hit $4/gallon, what will the demand be when gas is at $5 or $6?  Layer into the cost of driving, increasing costs of parking, congestion pricing, more open road tolling, carbon taxes. Because transit takes so long to build out, we need to start today. 

Redundancy: If we think back to Katrina, the lack of alternatives for people without cars to evacuate the New Orleans proved disastrous. Some policy experts claimed that the solution was to make sure the poor and carless had access to cars. A few weeks later, another hurricane demanded that Houston evacuate. The highways were backed up and people sat motionless in their cars for hours. Today, as I write this note, a huge snow storm is bearing down on Boston. Planes are cancelled and roads will be dangerous. My homeward-bound college age son is stuck in Washington DC. 

My point is not that we should build trains and transit to accommodate one-day freak storms, just as I do not advocate building parking lots to accommodate Black Friday shopping demand. But real diversity and redundancy in transportation systems is mandatory. This nation needs to accommodate the transportation needs of people of all incomes, of all ages, of all development densities. The last 50 years of supporting one mode -- cars -- to exclusion of others, has not served us well. It is time to right the balance.

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With ridership growing, US public transportation needs more investment. Established rail systems need to be revitalized. But pouring money into poorly conceived transit projects will not make transit a viable alternative for the majority of Americans living in auto-dependent suburban areas. We don’t just need more transit investment, we need smarter transit investment, with rewards for political leaders willing to make the difficult but necessary choices that make good projects happen. 

The most cost-effective way to expand high performance mass rapid transit is Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT. New BRT systems have opened recently in cities as diverse as Cleveland, Mexico City, Beijing, Delhi, Jakarta, Los Angeles, and Eugene, Oregon. Well designed BRT can often provide transit service with the speed, comfort and capacity equivalent to metro or light rail systems but at a fraction of the cost. This is done by providing metro-like stations where passengers enter the bus through several doors at once from a platform level with the bus floor. This reduces boarding and alighting time dramatically, which is the main cause of delay in bus services. BRTs also have exclusive rights-of-way, cutting delay. The best BRT systems, such as Bogota’s TransMilenio, move as many passengers per hour (over 35,000 per direction) at average speeds (around 30kph) as metro systems, often without an operating subsidy. Rail systems require very high population density to operate without significant subsidies.

Subsidies for transit are essential in America to ensure that people have travel choices, to support environmentally-efficient transit-oriented development patterns, and to compete with the huge hidden subsidies that have encouraged driving and car-dependent development. But transit agencies could better serve growing transit demand if they focused new investments in ways that optimize overall system performance and operational profitability, rather than just prioritizing routes and investments that they think will be most politically popular. Today, many transit authorities scarcely analyze the longer term financial ramifications of their capital programs. Growing dependence on voter approved sales tax financing exacerbates this tendency.

Yet effective climate-sensitive transportation investment policies demand more attention to maximizing overall transportation system performance. The majority of Americans don't have the choice of using public transportation. The US should certainly invest more in rail system development where it promises to be cost-effective in serving transit markets. Many communities may choose to develop new rail systems even if they are more costly and take longer to put into place, finding these attractive ways to anchor real estate development. But while we cannot afford to build rail lines everywhere, we could provide much more frequent and attractive bus services to many more places with the resources likely to be available for investment and sustained operations in the mobility marketplace. And BRT can be used like rail to anchor transit-oriented development.

Maybe the most important investment a city can make is a bus-only tunnel under the one major intersection that is causing delay for a large number of buses. Maybe it is the need for an exclusive bus lane on a congested bridge. Maybe it is the need for a pre-paid boarding and alighting station at the one or two stops where most passengers are getting on and off. These relatively low cost measures could have enormous benefits for passengers and revenue alike, but they often require strong political conviction. Federal money needs to be used to give incentives to mayors and governors to make these tough choices, rather than encouraging mayors and governors to avoid the tough choices by putting public transportation lines underground or up in the air at great cost.  

BRT often has more than cost advantages compared to light rail transit (LRT), which can only operate where there are special tracks, thereby forcing many more transfers and substantial investment for station access. For example, Denver plans to spend well over $1 billion – one fifth of the cost of its total light rail system - building more than 21,000 parking spaces for people to park at LRT stations.

A big advantage of BRT is that the bus can go anywhere. The same bus can operate in mixed traffic where there is no congestion, enter a busway in a congested area, and then leave the busway again. In this way, the system can provide more one-seat rides with less need for park-and-ride lots, which are expensive and blighting in dense urban areas. The BRT system can create a bigger transit network much faster. Multiple bus routes can share the same trunk BRT corridors with no problems. BRT buses can also sometimes share LRT station facilities. 

So why aren’t more US cities developing BRT? In fact, they are. The Orange Line in Los Angeles, for example, is moving 25,000 passengers a day, more than most of the planned light rail corridors in Denver. The new Euclid Avenue corridor in Cleveland,  Pittsburgh’s East and West bus lines, the Silver Line in Boston, Eugene Oregon’s BRT system, all of these systems opened in the last few years. Most of these systems are delivering a good quality transit service at a fraction of the cost of light rail alternatives. 

But none of these systems enjoy all of the system characteristics that make Bogota’s TransMilenio the world’s best BRT system today. Indeed, the most important transit innovations in the last three decades have happened in Latin America with bus systems. Most of these techniques for making bus services more profitable, more comfortable, faster, and more reliable, are not well known in the US.

The non-profit Institute for Transportation and Development Policy has documented global best practices and provides resources to cities interested in exploring BRT options. Their recent comprehensive BRT Guide is available free online.

As America considers the next transportation bill, it is worth considering how funding incentives could spur performance and innovation in both roads and public transit system management. Performance-based transportation investment plans should be required as a condition for funding, including operational plans for both highways and public transportation. Federal law should give transportation agencies strong incentives to consider BRT as plans are designed to address reduce greenhouse gases and improve mobility and equity of access for all.

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Although mass transit performs many important uses, particularly for certain niche communities in large urban areas, it cannot replace our nation’s need for good highways. While mass transit effectively moves people, infrastructure investment is critical to the safe and efficient movement of freight.

The trucking industry’s ability to move goods to market has a direct impact on the overall health of the U.S. economy.

The Federal Highway Administration reports that over the past 25 years, the number of registered vehicles has increased 56 percent, yet new road miles have grown by only 4 percent and lane capacity has increased by just 6 percent. Because of this, traffic congestion has become a major threat to our nation’s productivity.

Some 437 urban areas nationwide are plagued by traffic congestion, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. Congestion annually costs the U.S. economy $78 billion in the form of 4.2 billion “lost hours” and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel. If key congestion bottlenecks were eliminated, the trucking industry alone could save 4.1 billion gallons of fuel over 10 years, and 45.2 million tons of CO2 emissions.

With mass transit accounting for just 2 percent of urban passenger miles traveled, there is a great potential for growth in this area. But investments in mass transit should not come at the expense of our nation’s highways.

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The following comments come to us from Judith Bergquist, Associate Director of Rural Programs in the Denver office of the Colorado Center for Community Development., which is funded in part by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and the University of Colorado Denver. Her submission follows:

I think that sometimes we look past some simple and very viable alternatives to multi – modal transit for bigger glitzy solutions.

We should look at road and bus systems that could effectively be started today and get buses to run every 10 minutes from suburb to suburb and suburb to work centers and downtowns. We need the buses to run often with lots of quick stops to increase this ridership before other transit is even in place. We will lose the cars because there will be ease of access.

We too often wait and put money into the huge transit projects – which I am all for- but this only solves a portion of the overall problem.

We can have buses – electric preferably or some other good fuel solution, to get transition to transit going NOW.

We also need to develop passenger rails from city to city all over our country. That too would reduce car transit.

What we need is a transit tsar that looks at every transit option ( roads, trucks, rail, airlines, cars, buses, transit, subways, etc.) currently in place and looks at a systematic holistic and sustainable solutions.

We need to have all transit looked at as a whole instead of in pieces. This includes looking at our land use, where school are and can be built, where grocery stores are built, etc. If transit is looked at as a whole system we would use funding more effectively and get people out of cars – using less oil NOW – reducing carbon Now – and not waiting for everything to be in place first. The transit system looked at holistically will also be able to be better phased.

 We need a new highway deal like Eisenhower did but for multi-modal transit for the entire country.

Until we look at the whole we won’t solve Rural problems, or the suburb problems and not the least of all the urban problems.

Finally we need to subsidize buses, rail, light rail as a country, as we have done for highways, and airlines – so that every person, rich or poor can get on a bus and get to the daycare or school and to work in a reasonable amount of travel time without long waits and high costs. We need to price roads, highways and cars for their real cost and show people just how much it takes to travel alone in a car. Including the carbon foot print.

We need a discussion about land use and multi-modal transit in the general population through mass media and other forums –  to create real solutions in real time and look at transit as a whole in how and where we live and work and play.

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Public transit supporters definitely have the clout to influence the next transportation bill. In no way will this effort to fund more public transit projects replace the much needed investment in maintaining and expanding our national highway system. What it will provide is an opportunity to better balance our investments. We are in a unique time in both our country’s history and globally—a time that demands a new paradigm of thinking and investment. There is pressure to invest in infrastructure improvements that will reduce carbon emissions, reduce dependency on foreign oil, create jobs and improve our quality of life. Investment in public transit is a significant part of that solution. 

Along with maintaining and enhancing our highways, bridges and other critical transportation infrastructure, public transit has been recognized as an important part of that solution for near-term improvements and long-term investment.  For many years, due to cheap gas prices, a car-centric focus and lack of concern over the environment, public transit has been under-funded as a national investment priority. 

Due to the rapidly changing global and national environment and economic situation, public transit has been recognized by individuals and decision makers as a real and cost-effective solution. This was proven in the recent November 2008 elections when 77 percent of the transit initiatives on ballots across the country were approved by voters, even during an economic crisis. Voters have mandated an investment in transit in the most dire of economic times.  In addition, the incoming Presidential administration has acknowledged that investment in infrastructure as part of the economic stimulus package will focus on projects like public transit to create jobs and help reduce our carbon emissions and dependency on fossil fuels.

There has been no other time like the present to influence decision makers about the positive cost and benefits of investing in transit.  The clout for public transit is being generated not only at a grassroots level but from our decision makers as well. The time to act is now. 

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This response was sent in by Christopher B. Leinberger: Real estate developer, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Professor and Director of the University of Michigan graduate real estate program, former Managing Director/co-owner of the country’s largest real estate advisory firm and author. 

Over the past decade, there has been a growing consensus among real estate market analysts, industry observers and developers that there is pent up demand for high density, walkable urban development. American downtown revitalizations, the re-emergence of former and new city neighborhoods, the resurgence of suburban downtowns, the redevelopment of dead and dying suburban malls and the emergence of so-called lifestyle centers are all testament to this pent up demand. It is not that the way real estate has been building since the middle 20th century, low density, drivable sub-urbanism, is a flawed product or morally bad, it’s just that we have structurally overbuilt it.   This consensus has been based upon consumer and demographic research but, most importantly, it is based upon the significant price premium walkable urban development achieves in the marketplace, which is a sure sign of pent up demand and is otherwise known as “gentrification”. After 60 years of just providing one way of living, working and shopping, the market wants a choice.

However, walkable urban development also requires different transportation infrastructure than we have been building in the recent past. That is because transportation drives development. Since we started building cities 5500 years ago, the transportation system a society selected has dictated how the real estate industry could build our cities and metropolitan areas. The pent up demand for walkable urban development requires multiple transportations options; rail and bus transit, biking, pedestrian as well as cars and trucks. Many consumers have rebelled against the drivable sub-urban requirement that 25% of their household income go toward a depreciable asset, their cars, to participate in society. And only by providing multiple transportation options can the desired density be achieved to provide the basic amenity that walkable urbanism provides; having most daily needs met within walking or transit distance. Only providing one transportation option, highways and the huge amount of space required to park cars, makes it exceeding difficult to build walkable urban places. 

If we never built the freeways, responding to the pent up consumer demand for drivable sub-urban development of the post-war years, we could not have given the market the Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriett suburbs the Baby Boomers and their parents wanted. 

There are many other legendary challenges for real estate developers to provide the market what it wants. Walkable urban development is generally illegal in most jurisdictions in the country due to zoning and parking codes. NIMBY opposition to the traffic, loss of open space and pollution of drivable sub-urban development has generated emotionally charged opposition to any development in many metro areas. As a developer, it gets really old always proposing projects that are illegal and kindles hatred generated by decades of traffic-fueled sub-urban development, even though my projects are walkable. And the increased complexity of financing and building walkable urban places is far greater than building modular suburbia. Building drivable sub-urbania is akin to driving a 150 mph NASCAR race car; building walkable urban places is more like flying a 600 mph fighter jet; it is far more riskier and requires different skill sets. 

Yet the market eventually gets what it wants. Developers are not so foolish as to continue building drivable sub-urban houses, strip retail and offices on the metropolitan fringe when market prices are below replacement costs. This requires the laborious changing of zoning laws and re-tooling real estate skill sets. However, our society must build the transportation and other infrastructure that walkable urban development demands. What is particularly missing is rail transit, supplemented by increased bus service, biking for what seems like the 10-20% of consumers who want this option and, of course, pedestrian enhancements. We need to build the other half of the surface transportation system, adding to the impressive, if under-maintained, highway system we have. 

Why rail transit? Middle class Americans like it far better than bus transit. In addition, real estate developers and investors have increased confidence in it since rail transit implies permanence; it is easy to change a bus route but not so with fixed rail. The combination of middle class preference and the permanence of rail transit have resulted in far more real estate development being sparked around rail stations than bus stops, assuming it is legal of course. 

America’s economy also demands rail transit, as well as increased biking and pedestrian improvements. The industrial economy drove a car-based transportation system and the sub-urban development patterns that followed. The knowledge economy appears to demand a balanced transportation system with rail transit being the missing element which provides a choice of walkable urban development pattern in addition to drivable sub-urban. However, the pent up demand is for walkable urban development and the missing elements of the surface transportation system is rail transit, bike and pedestrian. Let’s give the market what it wants. 

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While the question of whether mass transit’s time has arrived is an interesting one, I think it is a component of a broader question: how can transportation best serve national goals and purposes like economic growth, environmental and energy sustainability, national connectivity, metropolitan accessibility, and safety? Improved transit can and should be an important component of transportation programs that serve those purposes – but objectivity is required to assess realistically how far transit can move us in the right direction.

Transit is well-suited to many situations, but not all. Improved transit in high-density areas can improve accessibility, reduce environmental and energy security damages, and foster economic growth in ways that simply adding more highways might not. At the same time, however, transit works best when used in conjunction with a program of policies, such as road pricing, that encourage system flexibility and incentivize transit usage. Transit capacity will meet the goals people want it to serve only if it is actually used. An approach that integrates the planning and prioritizing of road, rail, and transit programs is key to maximizing each mode’s performance towards national goals.

The long-running debate about how to allocate money between the various modes is out-of-date. If we are speaking about the federal role, we should be focused on funding that achieves outcomes tied to national goals, not in preferring one mode over another. Many people would agree that significant transit expansion in major metropolitan areas is likely to be a valuable tool in meeting national goals – but we also cannot ignore that improving the operations of existing highway and road networks might also play an important role. We need to understand trade-offs and to prioritize operations and projects within broad, cross-modal programs.

So before we jump to a conclusion about how to allocate funding - whether to give transit or highways more money - let’s ensure that we have a performance-based approach that can help us identify and prioritize programs that achieve national goals.

-To that end, the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Transportation Policy Project, which I direct, is bringing new voices to the transportation debate and creating a dynamic and enduring framework for the next transportation authorization and beyond.

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Mass transportation -- including all forms of public transportation from shared ride taxis to intercity passenger rail -- must be a focus of the next surface transportation bill. From every public policy perspective -- greenhouse gas emissions, energy policy, mobility and choice -- the time is now to rethink our nation's public transportation goals. Does that mean we should disinvest in highways and bridges? Absolutely not. Our nation's highway network needs investment. We do, however, need to think through how public transportation can integrate with our highway network to support better mobility for our citizens and smarter transportation policy on energy and the environment.

The current transit programs send much of the funding to mass transit systems in our largest metropolitan areas. Our metropolitan areas rely on mass transit to provide a needed mobility option for those who don’t want to use their cars or don’t have cars to use. However, in many parts of the country bus fleets are old, far beyond the timeframe in which they should have been replaced. Milwaukee, Madison and many smaller Wisconsin cities would benefit from increased funding for capital purchases - be it buses, trains, or streetcars.

In addition to the urban mass transit challenges, there are two issues that need special attention in the next bill. First, we should address public transportation needs of our rural areas. According to a study by the Community Transportation Association of America, the rural poor have less access to public transportation than the urban poor and must travel greater distances to commute to work, obtain necessary services, and make needed purchases. Nationally, close to 40 percent of all rural residents live in areas with no form of public transportation. Counties with smaller urban populations and greater distances to metropolitan areas are less likely to be served by a federally assisted public transportation program. We need to address rural transit issues with creativity including more attention on a vibrant intercity passenger train and bus system.

Second, we need to focus our efforts on intermodalism. We cannot simply expand what we have. We must think strategically about how to best connect our modes for the users of the multi-modal system. I want to make it easier and more energy efficient for a resident of Rhinelander, Wisconsin to travel seamlessly to Chicago, Illinois using an array of modes from the intercity bus to the passenger train, to the city bus, rail or subway system. The real test of the next surface bill will be the extent to which we can make the promise of ISTEA -- the first surface bill that focused on a more intermodal system -- a reality.

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1. Funding for mass transit and rail, both capital and operating, should see sustained increases.  While any proposed stimulus package needs to include a fair share of transit and rail investments, these investments cannot be successful without continuing financial support for the safe maintenance and operations of the transit and rail systems. 
2. This means that transit and rail funding needs to be a priority in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization—to foster not only better urban places, but also to achieve our goals of energy independence and reduced carbon emissions.
3. This additional federal funding needs to be accompanied by serious change in state and local land use practices.  Transit and rail investments are expensive up front and even more so when operation and maintenance costs are factored in over time.  These long term financial commitments only make sense if there are different land use patterns to take advantage of the transit and rail investments.  If we neglect land change, and only focus on increasing transit and rail funding, we will only be addressing half of the challenges presented by our consensus to reduce emissions, increase energy independence, and create better living and working spaces.
4. This increased funding should not come at the expense of other modes, particularly given the dire need to repair and replace our existing bridges across the country.

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Is this a new era for public transit? You bet.

Transit ridership is skyrocketing. Americans took public transportation over 10 billion times last year – the highest ridership in five decades. Not only are more people riding public transportation, they’re voting for it. Since 2001, transit ballot measures passed about 70 percent of the time. The popularity of passenger rail continues to grow as well, with Amtrak enjoying six straight years of record ridership.

Americans need more transportation choices, not fewer. And they don’t need those with an ideological bent against public transit giving them theoretical reasons why more public investment won’t work. I don’t have a bias – my members work in every mode of transport. But the facts are the facts.

Unfortunately, many public transportation systems are starving for funds. Putting more than $12 billion for ready to go transit initiatives in the pending congressional economic recovery plan would be a huge boost to those systems. The recession is causing state and local governments, which pay the bulk of transit operating costs, to go into the red. This leads to service cutbacks, fare increases, safety problems and employee layoffs. To respond to these problems, we need to allow Federal Transit Administration funds to be used to cover operating costs. This change would give transit agencies the flexibility they need to respond to their most pressing needs. 

The U.S. is falling behind foreign competitors in public transportation investment. Over the next decade, the Beijing subway will add ten new subway lines and expand from 70 to 335 miles.  China also plans to expand its passenger rail network with 1,554 miles of new track by 2020. The Shanghai subway will quadruple by 2018. Even mature systems like Paris Metro are expanding. America must not fall further behind. 

Transit investment will relieve road congestion and offer environmentally sound transportation alternatives to increase economic efficiency and global competitiveness. The reasons to invest more in public transportation – as part of a serious long-term federal transportation investment strategy – are both numerous and obvious.

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Transformative Change Requires Greater Transit Investments

Indeed, the time has come for mass transit.  Mobility needs -- together with the inclusion of criteria such as responsible land use, the promotion of energy security and the reduction of GHG emissions -- mean the time is right to transform our transportation culture and devote significantly more infrastructure support to public transportation in all forms.

Some analysts have a static view of transportation, examining today's land use and commute patterns and coming to the conclusion that public transportation can only contribute marginal gains to mobility.  This perspective has as a fundamental assumption that transportation should be responsive to other trends but is not a driver in land use, development patterns and the ways in which we live.  Input straight-line assumptions about behavior today and "poof" out will come results which suggest public transportation will play a marginal role in the future.  (Such an analysis when the Model T was invented would have led to a future replete with horses and buggies and with underbuilt road networks.)

If, however, you believe as many do that transportation itself can be a driver for these decisions, and we can use it as a means to plan better communities and fulfill our energy and climate goals, then you will see the creation of public transportation networks as part of a transformative process that will result in dramatically different travel patterns and more sustainable communities. Analysts may look at examples as diverse as Portland (Oregon), Amsterdam, and Hong Kong to see how different societies have managed the transformation.

Individual project decisions should be made by those in the regions and localities (except where they are part of national networks) after a planning process that is inclusive of these goals. There is no transportation reason to specify a national criterion.  As always, the political process will require balancing of the many interests to achieve a consensus--a reminder to advocates and ideologues-- that transformative change requires a political strategy in addition to a transportation one.

A DOT that is focused on mobility first and mode second will give regions and localities the ability to make the right decisions.

See more at enotrans.com

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Has the time come to devote significantly more funding to mass transit?  An emphatic YES!  Should it alter the current balance between federal funding for highways and transit?  Let the states and metro areas decide.  What works for Maryland is not likely to work for Montana. 

For states with congested urban areas, transit is literally the only way to add significant new capacity.  It's also an important part of any climate change action plan, and provides an excellent opportunity to tie together land use planning and transportation through transit-oriented development.  

We have to start by leveling the playing field.  While we get highway funds by formula, states and metro areas fight for transit monies primarily through earmarks, and the race to the bottom known as the New Starts program.  The New Starts transit program is very effective at its current purpose-- minimizing federal investment in transit-- while it discourages cities, metro areas and states from engaging in long-range, comprehensive plans to build truly seamless and ubiquitous transit systems. 

End the false dichotomy between highway and transit  funding by making system preservation needs the first call on federal dollars (whether highways and bridges, transit, aviation or port needs) and then using local, regional and state land use plans to drive new capacity (transit or highway) investment decisions with the remaining unified federal formula dollars.

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Public transit supporters definitely have the political clout needed to increase mass transit funding in the next surface transportation bill.  In fact, funding for transit has grown at a faster rate than highway funding increases for every recent authorization bill. 

But transit advocates need to be careful not to overreach in 2009.  Advocates for both highways and transit have generally agreed on a traditional 80/20 split for revenue increases for highways and transit.  This split has kept most transportation advocates united.  If transit advocates overreach and press for a greater share at the expense of highway programs, the good will and support of many highway advocates for transit could disintegrate.  With the many difficulties facing timely passage of a robust surface transportation bill, a disintegration of the coalition would be bad for all transportation advocates.

There are tremendous and well-documented needs for BOTH highways and transit.  President-Elect Obama has shown great leadership on highway issues and repeatedly endorsed investments in roads and bridges as a way to create sustainable long-term economic growth.  Yet, he has wisely avoided any statements that characterize growth in the highway mode as coming at the expense of another. Transportation advocates should also avoid attempts to grow individual modal programs at the expense of others.

Yet, the current funding arrangements are set up so that federal highway user fees subsidize transit expenses -- thus creating the unfortunate reality that transit does compete for funding at the expense of highway programs.  This system leads to inevitable tensions, but there are a number of opportunities to increase transit funding without reducing highway funding:

* The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Policy and Revenue Commission recommends that transit users contribute user fees through a mechanism like a national ticket tax. 

*Both transit and highways should be permitted to receive cap-and-trade auction funding for measurably cost-effective projects that reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. 

*Transit receives about 20% of its guaranteed funds from the General Fund of the Treasury.  The percentage of general funds for transit could possibly be increased to help meet transit needs without reducing highway funds.

It is important for policy makers and the public to recognize that (excluding air travel) between 98 and 99% of all passenger miles and vehicles miles of travel occur of our nation's aging roads.  Both private auto use and efficient public transit use in most areas is largely dependent on a good network of safe and efficient roads.  And in terms of carbon-dioxide reduction, transit reduces only about 1/3 of 1 percent of transportation greenhouse gas emissions.  A doubling of transit use would still have a tiny impact on carbon dioxide emissions at huge public expense.  Therefore, while both modes have tremendous needs, it makes no sense to reduce highway funding in order to increase transit funding. 

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The time has arrived --- but we need a plan before we build

In the furor over finding ways to increase and sustain employment, and the understandable desire to use infrasturcture investment to attach that problem, we need to remember that  money invested in the wrong tools is the equivalent of money wasted.  Given the depth of our present financial problems, and the fact that we will get only once chance to fix those problems -- including our transportation and energy problems -- we had better do some planning pronto.

Over a period of many years, we have dispersed much of our population into suburbs that are beyond the reach of light and heavy rail systems.  While those systems should be built, and improved, where they serve sufficient population density to be usable, we need careful planning to determine how we can realistically get people out of cars and into mass transit when they are moving from suburb to suburb or from one suburban location to another, which is what most transportation is about.

Bob Poole's thoughts on how to use buses and rapid transit lanes strike me as worth very careful thought. 

We don't have either a comprehensive energy plan or a comprehensive transportation plan, and before we spend more than we can afford on a system that won't work, we need to spend some time planning!!!

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Let me respond to this question with another one: compared to what? According to a recent report for the Urban Land Institute by Prof. David Hartgen, the long-range transportation plans of America’s large and very large metro areas already plan major increases in transit funding over the next 25 years. For the 22 MPOs whose long-range plans were reviewed, transit spending averages 41% of the total, while transit’s projected mode share is just 5.5%. Something is wrong with this picture.

Nearly all metro areas forecast continued growth in population and driving over the next 25 years. In most of them the major part of that growth will take place in the outer suburbs, and suburb-to-suburb commuting will continue to be the largest category. That sort of commuting pattern is hard to serve effectively via mass transit (especially rail transit), which works best serving large concentrations of jobs in traditional urban cores.

Nearly all the MPOs’ long-range plans implicitly acknowledge the problem, in two ways. First, they project only modest increases in transit’s mode share by 2030, despite devoting more than 40% (on average) of all transportation dollars to transit. Second, they project that traffic congestion in 2030 will be significantly worse than it is today. There is a direct connection between under-funding the highway infrastructure that buses, car-poolers, and individual motorists depend on and continued increases in congestion.

Rather than pouring billions more into rail transit lines that will serve only a small fraction of urban trips, it would make better sense to add highway infrastructure that does double-duty by providing motorists with a congestion-relief alternative and transit agencies with high-performance guideways for region-wide express bus (Bus Rapid Transit) service. A network of Express Toll Lanes added to the freeway system would do just that.

The key is to use congestion pricing for these express lanes. More than a decade of experience with HOT lane projects in half a dozen states has demonstrated the power of congestion pricing to provide reliable, high-speed, uncongested traffic flow on such lanes. Transit agencies would love to have exclusive busways, but a congestion-priced lane is, in fact, the virtual equivalent of an exclusive bus lane. The pricing simply allows enough paying automobiles to share the use of the lane, without degrading its uncongested performance.

Express Toll Networks can be created by converting existing carpool (HOV) lanes and adding new lanes (and flyover connectors) where HOV lanes don’t already exist. Preliminary estimates suggest that congestion-priced toll revenues can cover much of the cost of the needed new construction, especially in metro areas that already have a significant amount of HOV capacity.

Transit is obviously part of the urban transportation mix. But given the reality of how and where people live and work, we’re kidding ourselves if we expect it to become the predominant part. And if we over-invest in rail transit rather than increasing the capacity of the highway system in creative ways, we will doom our metro areas to ever-worsening traffic congestion.

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The answer is yes – America is at a crossroads with a struggling economy, limited transportation options, and growing concerns over oil dependence and climate change. Now is not the time to squander money on plans that do not help save Americans money, free us from oil dependence and create long-term jobs. Instead, we must do what America has always done in times of trouble: build confidently for the future.

Last week President-elect Barack Obama made a promise to the American people and issued a charge to his incoming Administration and the next Congress:  

"We won't just throw money at the problem. We'll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve – by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world." Dec. 6 Radio Address

As to how to achieve this progress, the President-elect proposed to “create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s.”

Building a complete, state-of-the art transportation network – with excellent, modern rail both within and between cities, and more comprehensive transit, pedestrian and biking systems – is the moon-shot opportunity of our generation. Or as Obama might have said, the transformational equivalent of the Interstate Highways of 50 years ago.

The economic recovery package is an opportunity to get our economy moving again IF we use the funds wisely to build a 21st Century transportation system. The creation of the federal highway system was phase one of the American transportation network, built at a time when gas was dependably cheap and the population was dispersing. Today, oil prices are extremely volatile and the population is concentrating within our metro areas.

In terms of the immediate future and a recovery package, the deteriorating economy has certainly emphasized the necessity to restructure how and where government spending is allocated, and it has become clear that accountability is the key priority. Before funding is distributed, a review of project requests from State Departments of Transportation must be conducted first. States like Missouri and Arizona have submitted wish-lists that call for billions of dollars in funding, with less then ten percent of funding going towards public transportation projects.

President-elect Obama has promised change. We must view the economic stimulus as a down payment on the second phase of our national transportation system. Expanding road and highway capacity cannot be a priority. Funds – both from the economic recovery package and the next surface transportation bill – must go to investments that fix our crumbling bridges and highways as well as increase support for the cleanest forms of transportation — public transit, high speed rail, walking and biking — and ultimately help Americans compete and thrive and invest in a clean, green recovery.

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The short answer is that yes, the time is ripe for making a larger commitment to public transportation than has been the case in the last 50 years. In tough economic times, we should be looking for infrastructure investments that can accomplish diverse policy goals in order to make the most effective use of limited taxpayer dollars. The American Public Transportation Association has a useful paper about the multiple payoffs – social, economic, energy and environmental – of transit investments. 

Congressional leaders and President-elect Obama have acknowledged that greenhouse gas emissions reductions are critical to counter global warming, and oil savings are another priority for any responsible legislation. In fact, the President-elect has committed to specific national goals for achieving both these national objectives: An 80 percent cut in global warming pollution by 2050 and saving about 3.5 million barrels of oil a day – as much as we import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined – in ten years.

Actually, the second goal of conserving oil contributes to the first, as Roger Sant and Michael Kinsley pointed out in their opinion piece in the Post yesterday. While we may not be able to achieve “energy independence,” we can greatly boost our security by cutting oil consumption, which leverages our oversized role as a global oil consumer and cuts the market power of oil-rich states, as I have discussed on my blog. Some conservative activists recognize this benefit of transit investment, as in the case of the Free Congress Foundation, which has proposed a “National Defense Public Transportation Act” as a 21st-century complement to the 1956 National Defense Interstate Highway Act. Paul Weyrich writes about it here.

Another reason to be persuaded that transit’s time has come is that demand appears to be undergoing some structural shifts, with demographics and oil price projections indicating we will see more of the same. Rob Puentes will release a new analysis of this emerging trend in transportation, while Chris Nelson of Virginia Tech has been studying related land-development data, which shows a risk of overbuilding of large-lot sprawl coupled with under-supply of more compact development models -- for several years. The upshot is that there are good reasons to believe that transit ridership will keep growing at a healthy pace, and could be driven up further and faster, while driving (especially per capita) may be hitting a wall.

Your last question is harder to answer. Politics sometimes leads the real world, sometimes lags it, and on rare occasions is directly in tune with the times. Do those of us who support public transit as part of a more balanced, 21st-century portfolio of transportation investments aimed at shoring up energy security, cutting pollution and ensuring adequate housing and transportation choices for consumers have enough clout to advocate successfully for such policy? Stay tuned.

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APTA, the American Public Transportation Association, has submitted a package of over $ 8 billion in short term projects. These are projects which are ready to go now. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of stimulus bills, but since it is clear President elect Obama is intent on advocating one,I certainly hope the Congress will include these transit projects in whatever bill they come upm with.. Beyond that there are many, many cities which are interested in light rail and streetcars. The Bush Administration has absolutely refused to fund any of these. I hope, if all of the money isn't gone that the Obama Administration will agree to fund most of these which deserve support. Has mass transit come of age? We shall see by the level of projects which are in the stimulus package, and we shall see if Obama funds rail in the longer term.

New federal highway administration data confirms yet again that after years and years of steady increases, the total amount of driving in the U.S. has slowed down dramatically. From October 2007 to September 2008, for example, we drove 90 billion fewer miles than the same time period the year before. In fact, for the first time in our history, the amount of roadway available to drivers is outpacing the number of miles we actually drive. (Look for a new Brookings report coming out tomorrow which will provide a more exhaustive analysis of our national driving patterns over the last several decades and also charts driving trends by state and the 100 largest metro areas).

Without a doubt some of this decrease is attributable to skyrocketing gas prices because we know most people can’t stop traveling – but some can change how they travel. Transit use, interestingly, is at its highest level since the 1950’s, and Amtrak just set a ridership record this year.

But we also know that these transit riders are heavily concentrated in just the largest metropolitan areas. The reality is that the availability and accessibility of public transportation across the country's 100 largest metro areas is lacking.

One source of data to examine this question is the American Housing Survey which asks residents whether or not they live in a neighborhood where transit is available. Aggregating the last three years of the survey responses shows that only 55.2 percent of respondents reported that transit is available to them. Even more disturbing is that only one-third of respondents in newly-constructed housing reported that transit was present.

Although almost all of our buses serve the top 100 metro areas but half are concentrated in just 10 large metros. Heavy rail (subways) exist in only 11 metros like Philly and San Francisco. Commuter rail is in only 14 metropolitan areas – primarily in the Northeast and California. And light rail can be found in only 26 – like Minneapolis, San Diego, and Denver. Based on the admittedly simple inventory of transit infrastructure available, 54 of the 100 largest metros do not have any rail transit service and also have relatively weak bus systems.

This includes large metros like Orlando and Indianapolis; fast growing metros like Raleigh and Jacksonville and slow growing metros like Youngstown and Rochester, NY. This lack of metropolitan travel options means nearly 100 million Americans are tethered to their cars for their daily travel needs. That is, assuming they can afford the high costs of owning a car.

As employment has dispersed through metro areas, lower income workers are finding themselves increasingly isolated and therefore need to spend higher proportions of their income to reach their jobs. The working poor spend 6.1 percent of their income on commuting compared to 3.8 percent for other workers. Those that use their own car spend the most at 8.4 percent. (And this doesn’t even reflect the recent spike in gas prices)!

Part of the policy problem is that federal highway and transit programs operate on an unlevel playing field. While projects using highway dollars are subject to only perfunctory review and enjoy a federal funding contribution of 80 or 90 percent of the project, transit projects are subject to an intense, hypercompetitive bureaucratic process and a federal contribution of less than half of the project cost.

The result is that while the nation built enough rail to stretch from Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere to the London Underground over the last 20 years, we also managed to construct 132 thousand miles of additional roadways – enough to circle the globe more than 5 times.

In order to level the policy playing field and begin the transition to a clean, efficient, energy-independent future, metropolitan areas need a broad strategy of "modality neutrality" that establishes equal treatment of highway, transit, and non-motorized projects. This is a lesson from the U.K. that empowers decision-makers to evaluate all projects on their ability to deliver cost-effective benefits by the best means available not through the rules or funding silos assigned to a particular mode.

In the immediate term, we know that members of Congress and the new administration are currently debating a recovery plan that could direct hundreds of billions of dollars towards infrastructure to help put Americans back to work and get our economy moving by rebuilding our roads, bridges, and mass transit systems.

So in addition to fixing what is broken, the recovery package should also support new transit expansions and projects that contribute to a clean, efficient, energy-independent future. Specifically, any pending project meeting statutory criteria seeking New Starts and Small Starts funding (section 5309) and approval should be eligible for economic stimulus funding. Over $16 billion worth of new transit capital investments could move from planning to contracts and construction in the next year ($4 billion in 90 days) if additional federal funding and contingent commitment authority were provided, and the federal review process expedited by the incoming administration.

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As I noted in my first post, it is critical that we find ways to expand public transportation across the country to meet the new ridership demands. Improving mobility and expanding multi-modal flexibility, while reducing congestion and greenhouse gas production will require more Americans shifting to public transportation, and any meaningful shift will necessitate significantly more funding for public transportation.

National transit ridership stats released last week show year-over-year growth of more than six percent in the most recent quarter. Here at NJ TRANSIT, we have experienced five consecutive years of record-high ridership with nearly one million trips taken on the system each weekday. Ridership continues to be strong, despite lower gasoline prices, especially on rail service on our busiest lines serving Manhattan. In the next 25 years, we expect ridership on these lines to more than double, creating new challenges to acquire the infrastructure (station capacity, track, rail yards, etc.), rolling stock (rail cars and locomotives) and resources needed to support this demand.

New Jersey is uniquely representative of a multi-modal, balanced transportation system with a progressive funding policy. Nearly half of our transportation capital program is dedicated to transit, not only for heavy commuter rail, but for light rail, bus rapid transit and inter and intra-state bus service. We have developed a system in New Jersey where the Department of Transportation and NJ TRANSIT work collaboratively to promote policy goals for the overall betterment of the State, specifically -- to develop a multi-modal transportation system designed to relieve congestion, reduce greenhouse gases, and improve the quality of life by moving both people and goods as efficiently as possible.

Moving to a multi-modal system is not only a New Jersey or a Northeast phenomenon. Just look at the geographically diverse list of locations that have either recently received or are about to receive funding from the FTA under New Starts, the capital funding pot for transit projects: Salt Lake City, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Portland, Memphis, Denver, New Orleans, Cleveland and Charlotte to name a few. Many of these locations did not have much of a public transportation system a quarter century ago and are now quickly shifting to transit to address congestion, air quality, energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and quality of life.

Moreover, we should be cognizant of the fact that transit has been proven as an important tool for economic development while we address the current economic crisis. Today, we know transit investment spurs economic development and increases property values around transit stations, stops and hubs to offer a way of achieving more development with less vehicular congestion and greater use of transit and walking. Mixed development can be a very effective means of creating economic activity centers that provide new jobs, are more energy efficient, pollute less and are also nice places to live.

I would also argue that transit investment is critical to our national security. We have all seen what happens when fuel prices escalate to $4. We need to prepare for demand before the next surge -- how would we manage demand if gas escalates to $10, or worse, fuel supplies were disrupted by natural or man-made disasters? A balanced multi modal strategy is not only good transportation and public policy, it is essential for the nation's ability to weather the next national crisis.

Many transit projects necessarily require a long time to develop and construct. Now is the time to begin that investment to prepare ourselves for the unforeseeable and to build a better America. I can't help but think of the U.S. auto industry and their delay in moving to a new business strategy while SUVs were still a red hot product. The current economic crisis provides a unique opportunity to forge ahead with a forward thinking transportation investment strategy that holds true to simple goals -- to develop a multi-modal transportation system designed to relieve congestion, reduce greenhouse gases, and improve the quality of life by moving both people and goods as efficiently as possible.

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The signs of transportation infrastructure decay and under investment are all around us. Any American driving on the highway, riding on a train or flying out of an airport knows all too well about overcrowding and delays. More than 43,000 people die on our highways every year.

The economic chokehold on American businesses grows tighter because products sit on trucks that are stuck in traffic gridlock.

Given the "capacity deficiencies" and the crumbling state of America's transportation network, of course, the next surface transportation investment bill should significantly boost investment in transit, just as it should for highways and bridges.

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) fully supports worthy "new start" rail projects, but given that the majority of transit trips are taken on buses, we also need to improve and maintain the road network that serves transit as well.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), there is $20 billion annual shortfall at the federal level between current highway investment levels and what is necessary just to maintain road conditions. For public transit at the federal level, the shortfall is about $4 billion annually. And if we wanted to actually improve highway/transit conditions and build new capacity, the investment gap is even larger.

At a very minimum, for the next authorization bill, ARTBA recommends a 13.5 cents-per-gallon increase in the federal motor fuels excise to meet the documented highway, and transit investment needs identified by U.S. DOT. The fuels tax should also be permanently indexed to compensate for future inflation. This recommendation assumes continuation of the traditional 80-20 percent split of new revenues between the Highway and Mass Transit Accounts.

The "T" for "transportation" was added to ARTBA's name back in 1977 to reflect that the association's members design, build and manage all forms of transportation systems. The next authorization bill shouldn't be about having a modal "food fight." It's an inter-connected infrastructure network and we should be boosting investment in all parts of it to get America moving again!

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