This response was sent to us by cartoonist and alternative transportation activist Andrew Singer of Saint Paul, Minn.

Often land use changes are the most cost effective way of solving transportation issues. For example, what would be more cost effective over 50 or 100 years: Building a new rail line or highway out to some suburban housing development or industrial park? ...Or, relocating that housing or industry into a dilapidated urban core? As energy costs rise, clearly the answer is "relocation" because this would permit jobs, people, goods and services to be located closer together. Thus, wouldn't truly progressive transportation policy consider and fund land-use projects such as cleaning up urban brownfields or Superfund sites and helping to develop them into affordable housing or industrial parks? Wouldn't this be true "multi-modalism?"

One could also fund incentives with "transportation" dollars (or TIGER funds)-- like mortgage assistance for urban business location or residential development (what's currently called "location efficient mortgages"). They do this kind of stuff all the time for OTHER purposes-- Job or neighborhood revitalization programs or business relocation incentive programs. It could also fund land-use studies leading to state land-use legislation or other research.

When I visit old US cities in the Midwest or in the Northeast, I see a ton of brownfield and toxic sites that need cleaning up and are conveniently located near rail lines, transportation and other services. I'm thinking of cities like Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, Peabody, Springfield, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. It'd be nice if DOTs and MPOs viewed cleaning up these toxic sites as more than just an environmental/urban development issue and also looked at them in terms of transportation. A TIGER or SAFETEA program that awarded grants for cleanups, urban mixed use developments or other constructive land-use programs would be a great tool for MPOs and might help force more integrated thinking about land-use and transportation.

Our nation is in obvious need of infrastructure improvements and every dollar invested in infrastructure projects contributes to the creation of additional jobs. However, the TIGER grants program should not replace the current highway and transit funding system. Our primary focus for all transportation projects must be the economic benefits derived from federal spending. The subjective disbursement of TIGER grant funds to general “transportation” projects appeases regions looking for transportation aid, but it is not a sustainable method for achieving a strong return on investment.

As Mr. Poole pointed out, financing all transportation projects from the same pool of general funds eliminates the concept of a user-pay system. The federal fuel tax remains the most equitable way to fund highway infrastructure projects. Highway users must be assured that the federal tax they pay at the pump --18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel -- is going toward the expansion and repair of our national highway system, not an alternative transportation project.

TIGER grants are ad hoc, with no assurance of continuity, while a highway bill allows long-term planning and more efficient use of revenues. Congress must pass a long-term highway bill to ensure we have the resources necessary to finance projects that will benefit to our national highway system and economy as a whole. We cannot continue relying on extensions to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent. Congestion plagues our transportation system, creating great inefficiencies that will only worsen as U.S. freight tonnage grows. Economists expect a 26 percent increase in the next 10 years.

A long-term commitment to a national transportation policy that repairs and expands our highway system to facilitate the efficient movement of our nation’s freight is the quickest, most efficient way to create jobs and restore our economy.

What enabled the TIGER grants to be merit-based and modally neutral was the fact that they were deficit-financed. That form of financing was a one-time opportunity not likely to be replicated and serve as a model for the future.

TIGER grants provide a terrific framework for the kind of forward-thinking, 21st Century transportation reform we need.

A strong surface transportation bill would build upon the performance-based criteria used for rewarding TIGER grants. These measures include a project’s contribution to economic competitiveness, quality of life and greenhouse gas reduction. With declining oil resources abroad and increasing gridlock at home, it is not a question of whether we can afford to ask these questions. We cannot afford to avoid them any longer.

For decades, transportation officials in Washington and throughout the country have asked how to get from point A to point B, without putting A and B in any kind of broader context. This has led to fewer choices for Americans, as many live farther and farther away from where they work and lack any transportation options. The diversity of projects that were awarded TIGER grants speaks to the ability of performance-based measures to increase choices. These projects included bridge replacements, port and freight-rail projects, streetcars and road reconstruction.

Competition is a good thing and we don’t have enough of it in our federal transportation programs. The next transportation bill will undoubtedly continue to award funds by formula to states and metropolitan areas, but it should do so using an aggressive screen of new performance measures while complementing those formula funds with a robust set of nationally competitive funds that can build on the lessons learned from the TIGER program.

T IGER had good and bad elements. I have in the past in this blog spoken highly of it as a model for future national transportation policy. Why? It was great that TIGER, for the first time, allowed ports to apply directly for funds and broadened what could be funded beyond traditional transportation projects (even though not all ports were on board with this broadening to include some “inside-the-gate” infrastructure). It was also good policy to allow modes to compete against one another. As Steve Heminger notes, however, modes were competing against each other toward what objective? The objectives were perhaps too numerous and incompatible that the mode-neutrality left DOT comparing not just “apples to oranges”, but apples to wrenches, that is, two different modes that are great to achieve different objectives. The freight community needs a freight-focused multi-modal program. On the negative side, I would certainly concur with the commentators about the need for additional funding. Never before in my experience have I ever seen a government program oversubscribed 38 to 1. And this was only for projects that were fairly “ready-to-go”, not to mention the billions more in projects that we need to complete in the 2-5 year time frame. This speaks to the tremendous need for enhanced infrastructure investment

I agree with Bob Poole.

President Obama often talks of his support of the market economy. In market economies, investment in essential facilities, such as transport, should respond to customers’ willingness to pay, and not to idiosyncrasies of politicians. The government’s role should be to ensure that charges for the use of transport infrastructure reflect the relevant costs.

The financing of rail infrastructure is a case in point. Why should road users and other taxpayers finance it? Why should those who wish to revert to 19th century technology not pay the costs themselves?

TIGER and Her Cubs

The USDOT’s TIGER grant announcement was great news for advocates who have been fighting for a national discretionary program that targets projects not traditionally funded by USDOT, state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). These include large capital projects that are multi-modal, multi-jurisdictional, and provide benefits to the public and private sectors. The three biggest project awards—the Crescent Corridor, the CREATE Program Projects, and the National Gateway Freight Rail Corridor—exemplify this category of projects as do many other freight and passenger projects further down the list. I am delighted that I have not seen any critics for this category of long neglected goods movement and passenger intermodal projects.

Two other factors are evident in the awards. First, the USDOT attempted to be inclusive both by spreading the $1.5 billion around to multiple projects and jurisdictions and by including factors often underemphasized in existing program criteria such as economic competitiveness, quality of life and reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Second, because the program was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), TIGER targeted projects (or portions of projects) that could be completed within ARRA’s statutory guidelines.

From my vantage point, I share Mort Downey’s view that the Secretary and USDOT staff struck a reasonable balance in the way that they employed the program’s criteria. Should a TIGER-like program be included in the surface transportation reauthorization? Yes. Are these lessons that can be learned from TIGER to change other transportation programs? Yes.

Given that we appear to have some time to be deliberative about these matters, here are three issues that should be resolved:

1. The balance between a national discretionary program and monies that flow through the states and MPOs.

2. How TIGER criteria (i.e., economic competitiveness, safety, condition of infrastructure, quality of life, reduction of GHG emissions and collaboration with the private sector) should influence the goals of reauthorization and potentially all programs within it. As more than one contributor has noted, it would be helpful to have more information on how USDOT specifically operationalized and applied the TIGER criteria.

3. For the majority of the programs that eventually flow through the states and MPOs, what types of flexibilities should be available to state and local decision-makers and how should they (as well as the federal government) be held accountable for them?

Reviewing my fellow contributors’ comments, I remain struck by the fact that we still lack agreement on the definition of a transportation user. To me, a user is a passenger or a shipper that wants to move or ship between two points. “Mode neutrality” therefore means, given all of the alternatives available, what is the least cost, fastest and most reliable way for a passenger to move or a good to ship? That is why the transportation community needs to dedicate more effort to how the USDOT, states and MPOs plan and judge alternatives and how these together address national, state and local goals. That technical exercise needs to be joined by a practical “roll up the sleeves” consensus-building effort.

The TIGER program is a very promising model in three ways: 1) it is mode-neutral and performance-based; 2) it rewards DOTs, transit agencies, and MPOs for thinking progressively—for taking factors such as environmental sustainability into account; and 3) according to PolicyLink, 60% of the TIGER grants will go to projects in low-income areas. That’s a huge improvement over the way the bulk of ARRA transportation funding was spent, too much of which funded sprawl in the exurbs. The overall sustainability goal which guided the TIGER grant-making process obviously paid off. This is the kind of innovation we need to include in the next version of SAFETEA-LU.

If the TIGER model is broadened, it will need to leave room for needs-based assessments as well as performance-based. We wouldn’t want cities with progressive transportation plans to dominate national transportation funding to the point where areas with really basic transportation needs were left out. Also, we have to be sure we’re addressing equity needs in formula grants. We need the special ability to reward areas that are doing innovative things and showing the way forward, but we also need a way to guarantee that we can meet the transportation needs of all low-income people.

Investing in areas that need jobs and infrastructure is a great way to get our country moving again. Now we need to make sure that a reasonable percentage of the jobs also benefit low income communities through the one of the best economic revitalization programs possible: a good-paying construction career--especially one that focuses on green jobs building transit and complete streetscapes.

When it come to the administration of this first round of TIGER grants, the real equity test will be who actually performs the approved projects. Each project should have a workforce agreement that follows TEN’s workforce development platform: 30% of the workforce hours on major projects should be performed by women, low-income people, and people of color; and one percent of the total project budget should go to training and support programs for low-income apprentices.

When the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) became law in 1991, a change was made which many considered one of the more significant reforms in the legislation. The responsibility for planning and decision-making was shifted to the State and Metropolitan Planning Organization (MOP) levels. The decision was based on the fact that state and local officials were in the best position to set priorities based on community needs, rather than federal bureaucratic priorities. 90% of the funding provided through ISTEA was distributed through apportionments to the states. The states and their MPO partners, decided how best to invest those resources. They have done a first-class job with that responsibility.

When SAFETEA-LU was enacted in 2005, the majority of criticism and negative press focused on Congressional earmarking and projects like Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere.” The bill passed by overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate. The news coverage on the state and local level has been generally positive with regard to what the federal resources have enabled states to fund and build. Enormous benefits to the transportation system have resulted. In Missouri, for example, a survey found that 85% of the state’s residents expressed support for the DOT’s ability to invest resources wisely.

What the states and their transit agencies were able to achieve through the Economic Recovery Act in 2009 was the creation 280,000 direct, on-project jobs through highway and transit investments. 1,125 bridges were improved, 21,400 miles of highways rebuilt, and 7,450 buses purchased. States were told that speed was of the essence in creating jobs through the $26.8 billion provided for highways and the $8.4 billion provided for transit, and they succeeded. Not one job, however, was created in 2009 through the $1.5 billion TIGER Grant Program. The entire year was spent on grantsmanship. Ask North Dakota, which was one of the states which did not receive a cent through the TIGER Grants if that should be a model for the next bill.

AASHTO’s Board of Directors has called for a reform through which 90% of the next highway program is distributed through apportionments to the states, up from 81% in SAFETEA-LU. The evidence is clear and supports AASHTO’s position that the states and their MPO partners continue to be in the best position to determine how best to invest the resources provided for surface transportation projects.

If 10% is to be allocated through national discretionary programs such as Projects of National Significance, then there may be merit in applying some of the TIGER program criteria to how those projects are selected. Shifting more power and more discretion to the political appointees running U.S. DOT as to where national resources should be spent.

There is much to be applauded in the TIGER program, including its emphasis on cutting across modes and on funding projects that have significant impacts on national, metropolitan, or regional significance. Moreover, the competitive nature of the TIGER program, if codified and continued, should, like the Urban Partnership Program of the Bush Administration, stimulate collaboration at the state and metropolitan levels and foster innovation.

To that extent, the TIGER program, contained in the Stimulus Bill, can be a model for initiatives in a new surface transportation authorization bill. However, without understanding the process of analysis and evaluation of the scores of applications for these funds, and the selection criteria used by U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), in “picking the winners,” it is not possible to determine how closely the actual implementation of the TIGER grants met the program’s statutory goals and purposes.

If the TIGER program and/or other programs like it are to be contained in a new multi-year authorization bill – and I hope that they will be – I would suggest these refinements –

First, a codified TIGER program, or one(s) like it, should encourage and reward comprehensive strategic programs, or bundles of investments and actions, at the state and local levels. The initial award of TIGER grants seemed in most cases to be focused on specific projects, limiting the effect of their results on the range of economic, safety, energy, and environmental values that should be present. If the goals of this federal grant program are better outcomes, we should be more flexible and systematic in defining what can be funded, and we should encourage states and metropolitan regions to collaborate, in developing comprehensive plans and programs to achieve these results.

Second, the specific purposes of the TIGER program should be more carefully – and, perhaps, more narrowly -- defined with a strong emphasis on mode neutrality.

Third, the performance criteria for the program should be contained within the authorizing legislation. To that end, as we have noted in the report and recommendations of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP), we must develop the data, metrics, and analytical tools on which DOT can base the selection process, and by which Congress and DOT can hold the “winners” accountable for achieving the outcomes and results that should be part of the competing applications.

Fourth, while the analysis and evaluation of competing applications should be undertaken by DOT, Congress should be involved in the final decision-making process. Such a joint process will allow this program to develop broader political support over time and will, hopefully, protect it against the earmarking that has come to characterize such recent initiatives, as the Projects of National and Regional Significance and the international trade-oriented border crossings and corridor programs.

An emphatic "yes" that the reauthorization effort should learn from and apply lessons from the TIGER program. We can all hope that process comes soon enough that the lessons will be remembered.

As to what we have learned, it is that transportation needs and opportunities are not identical place to place and mode to mode. If the reauthorization takes that into account, it will be possible to augment the traditional modal specific and formula driven programs with some flexible funding that can address the disparate needs that are out there. TIGER projects on the approved list show a diversity of objectives, generally include a strong matching committment and have survived a rigorous analytical effort. These are not "executive earmarks" dropped in out of the sky. The projects have form and substance and can be managed to achieve their promised results.

I'm also impressed with the extent to which TIGER has recognized the needs of goods movement. That's been something we have done in recent years, but not to the extent we should. TIGER sends the message that the federal government has priorities at the national level and is willing to put money on the table to see that these national priorities are addressed.

I hope that the DOT will follow through on tracking these projects, identifying the strengths and weaknesses that they found in the TIGER applications and help to design a future program that will work well as part of our national transportation investment.

The simple answer is, TIGER grants should be part of the solution, but not be the only solution. Every legitimate, effective and efficient source should be considered and should not be categorically disallowed. It’s time to get creative, to reinvent our transportation system and adopt groundbreaking concepts that are part of a strategic approach framed at the federal level. Recent stimulus funding should not be confused, or substituted, for reauthorization and discussions about funding mechanisms must be inventive and plentiful, like a gas tax tied to inflation, state infrastructure banks, user fees tied to vehicle miles traveled, and tolls.

The TIGER grants approach was noteworthy in that projects were evaluated across modal boundaries. This is a significant step in making funding decisions. Before it can be considered as a model for the next authorization much has to be accomplished to mature this approach. There needs to be a much clearer, understandable statement of goals and objectives with specificity on how a project's performance will be assessed in achieving them. When I looked over the projects that were funded, it was not evident what goals or objectives some of them were attempting to achieve. USDOT should encourage an open structured dialogue to address these types of concerns before changes are made to the current funding mechanisms.

On February 4th, at the 9th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference held in Seattle, the audience listened with great attention as U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and U.S. Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan outlined their plans for implementation of the new federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

This collaborative effort among the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development is designed to ensure that broad policy goals guide specific departmental decisions. Transportation decisions should consider impact on housing costs or energy consumption. Housing decisions should be based in part on proximity to employment. Choices among transportation projects should reduce energy consumption and climate changing emissions and maximize economic competitiveness.

More than 750 attendees enthusiastically greeted this change. In the meetings that followed, there were many questions — even doubts. Though some efforts were included in stimulus legislation, and though this new process is being considered as a key part of the reauthorization bill, many wondered: Would anything really change?

The answer is found in the details of the TIGER grants. They show that DOT understands that transportation is not just about moving people and goods. These projects help make places stronger, cleaner, safer and more prosperous.

The grants include a focus on bridge replacements that support multi-modal travel in states as diverse as Oklahoma, Michigan or Indiana. They support modern streetcars not only in the usual communities, such as Portland, but also in atypical areas such as Tucson or Dallas. Likewise, bicycle and pedestrian networks in Philadelphia, Indianapolis and complete streets for Dubuque received funding as did new train stations communities in New York as well as Normal, Illinois.

In the past, the strongest congressional delegation, or the best-paid lobbyist, or the noisiest community support or the biggest headlines leads to funding. Achievement of national priorities such as energy and emission reductions or affordable housing or economic competitiveness became secondary considerations. The TIGER grant process moves goals and priorities to the forefront.

Should this process be used for future transportation grants or new jobs and stimulus efforts? Yes! Should it be an integral part of the surface transportation reauthorization bill? Absolutely!

I will go one step further and argue a transparent, national goal oriented process should be the heart of most agencies’ decision-making.

Remember, TIGER stands for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery. Wouldn’t it be great if in the future, after the recession is over and we have once again achieved economic prosperity, we still had TIGER grants, except that the E and R of TIGER would stand for Environmental Results, or Equity Results or Energy Results? Secretary LaHood and the Obama Administration have taken a major step in that direction.

The TIGER program suffered from being both too much and too little of a good thing. Let me try to explain the paradox.

The good thing that TIGER suffered too much from is "multi-modalism". As recommended by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, I continue to believe that breaking down the barriers between modes in our transportation planning and funding decisions is a smart move. But it needs to occur at the right scale. The Policy Commission report recommended creation of new mode-neutral programs targeting investment at specific federal interests, such as interstate goods movement and metropolitan mobility. Within those specific federal interest areas, there is no reason to discriminate between modes and every reason to encourage competition among the modes so that the most cost-effective projects secure the funding.

By contrast, the TIGER program was unmoored from any over-arching policy framework, so it's hardly surprising that the resulting project selections should appear disjointed. In addition, as a national competition, there was little chance to consider investment trade-offs at a corridor or metropolitan level. Still, I was encouraged that a long-neglected category of federal investment -- freight and intermodal projects -- secured so much TIGER funding, and that many of the projects appeared to be "over-matching" the TIGER funding with far more than the typical 20% state and local share. In an era of scarce federal resources, leveraging is the name of the game.

The good thing that the TIGER program suffered too little from, of course, is money. Even if it were focused like a laser beam, $1.5 billion would only buy a half dozen freeway-to-freeway interchanges or the average rail extension in the current New Starts queue. Five bucks per capita was never going to do more than scratch the surface in a country as vast as our own.

So, let's celebrate TIGER's successes and learn from its limitations.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) was at National Journal's offices today for a roundtable with reporters and I got to ask him a few questions about the Indiana Toll Road lease deal. I wrote it up as a Q&A and posted it below. Check our Web site later for video clips of the session (and sessions with other governors), which covers a wide range of topics.

Q. Looking back at the deal you cut in 2006 for $3.85 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road to foreign companies from Spanish and Australia for 75 years, is there anything you would have done differently?

A. I like to second-guess myself and there’s plenty of realms where I would, but not this one. This thing looks better and better and better and better. Years from now, when no one can remember who the heck was governor back in ’08, they’ll be riding on infrastructure that would never have been there without that deal.

There’s one state in America where there’s a record-breaking construction program going on. Our only problem is we’re spending so much more than ever before our problem is not to spill some along the way. It’s all because of that deal. We not only found $4 billion of free cash, no taxes, no borrowing, we make in interest alone off what remains of the corpus as we reinvest it than the Toll Road generated for Indiana in 50 years total. We’ve also got the best toll road we’ve ever had.

Q. But you lost control of the state house in part because Republicans in districts where the lease deal was unpopular lost their seats, and you have not been able to advance your privatization agenda since then. Some critics complain that by taking only an up-front payment and not insisting on profit-sharing over the life of the lease, you gave up too much. How do you respond?

A. It’s the best deal since Manhattan for the beads, except this time the natives won. I get asked at every governors meeting, ‘How can I possibly do something like this?’ There are wrong ways to do it, absolutely, and we tried to be careful not to. If we’d spent any of the money on current operations that [would be] taking money from the future. We laid it down as a cardinal rule we are not going to burn the furniture to keep the lights on. We said every single penny must be reinvested for a long-term of the state.

Once in a while somebody will say, well in X years the money will be gone. I go, ‘No it won’t. You’ll be riding on it. And your kid will have a job in a business that is located by it.’ Our position is that government should be limited. But within those limits investments in infrastructure absolutely fit. There are enablers of a strong private economy.

Q. A lot of Hoosiers felt shut out of the process and many had serious misgivings about turning over state property to private companies, particularly foreign companies. How have you addressed those concerns?

A. Did you notice we won the election of 2008 with the most votes of any candidacy in our state? People have had time to digest it. It was very difficult. I never faulted anyone for a concern about this because in every case they simply misunderstood something. Everything you’re saying was certainly true, but these questions have not been asked in our state in quite a long time and the dreams of decades are being built.

I remember we looked at 31 options [in 2005, to address the state’s infrastructure deficit] and this was the only one that had a chance of getting us the money we needed. So it could have been done in the wrong way and these things all ought to be held up to high standards in terms of value captured. We captured three times the value of that road in political [i.e., state government’s] hands. It was losing money because politicians ran it.

The TIGER grants program is not a good model to replace the current highway and transit funding program. While some worthwhile projects did receive funding, the program’s goals and objectives were so amorphous that just about anything could get funded under them. That makes claims that this was a “merit-based” selection process difficult to believe.

To be sure, if the main goal of TIGER was to spend money on anything that could be called transportation, in order to put people to work, then the $1.5 billion awarded will fulfill that goal. Some 60% of the grants will go to “economically distressed areas,” and 41 of the 50 states managed to land at least one such grant. It’s hard not to believe that the politics of spreading money around widely were not at work here, especially when PR firms issued news released thanking the local member of Congress for the grant award (as happened with the Dallas streetcar project).

But the goal of surface transportation reauthorization should be better transportation—solving the two major national problems of horrendous congestion and bottlenecks in our goods-movement system. Those kinds of problems call for a far more focused approach, not a grab-bag of projects designed to spread money around.

An example of a highly targeted program was the DOT’s Urban Partnership Agreement competition in 2007. It focused specifically on urban traffic congestion, and offered funding for projects that involved implementation (not study) of projects involving pricing and transit. The UPA competition led to innovative HOT/BRT proposals that were implemented in record time in Miami and Minneapolis (as well as the promising proposal for congestion pricing in Manhattan, which died for lack of state legislative support).

Targeted programs can be multi-modal (as was UPA) without being mode-neutral. In other words, funding from more than one DOT modal administration can be combined for projects that involve more than one mode. But shifting the entire federal program to mode-neutrality would mean obliterating any remaining pretense that the federal gas tax is a user fee—since it would convert the gas tax into an all-purpose funding source. There is still a powerful case that people should pay for what they use and get what they pay for.

Trucking advocates are willing to support higher fuel taxes—for improved roadways. Likewise, auto clubs support increased fuel taxes for less-congested roads. But if Congress should ever adopt mode-neutrality—with highway user tax revenues available for high-speed rail, low-speed rail, expanded transit, freight rail, port dredging, lock and dam repair, and short-sea shipping-- that would finish off any hope of rectifying the massive backlog of needed highway improvements documented by both the Policy & Revenue Commission and the Finance Commission. There would simply be too many straws in the shared cocktail glass of all-purpose transportation money.

TIGER grants were a one-time use of general-fund money to assist economic recovery. They make a very poor model for serious efforts to fix America’s major transportation problems.

Just a quick, off-topic heads up that DOT has released a sample law that states can use as a template for legislation to ban texting while driving. It was drafted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and several safety and industry groups, including four represented on thisblog (Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, AAA, AASHTO and ITS America). Here's the link:

http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/DOT/NHTSA/Rulemaking/Texting_Law_021910.pdf

And here's a link to Transportation Secretary Lahood's entry in his Fast Lane blog on the subject:

http://fastlane.dot.gov/2010/02/dot-crafts-sample-bill-for-states-model-languagesupports-efforts-to-ban-texting-while-driving.html

Throughout the recession, many have found a silver lining in the idea that times of crisis also present times of opportunity. The TIGER program was created to aid economic recovery through high-priority infrastructure investments. It was a response to a crisis that also offers the opportunity to consider some ways in which our federal program could be restructured to deliver improved outcomes. Both the structure of TIGER and the response of the grant applicants demonstrate compelling ideas that policymakers should keep in mind when crafting a new transportation authorization.

There was great demand for the $1.5 billion in TIGER grants: 50 states and 3 territories submitted over 1400 projects representing nearly $60 billion dollars. While the demand for funding was not surprising, the makeup of the project requests was. By value, only 56 percent of the applications were for highway projects. Transit and rail projects made up nearly 25 percent of the value of applications. Dozens of bicycle and pedestrian projects such as this Philadelphia-area network were among the 10 percent of remaining requests.

A Mode-Neutral Program Effectively Responds to Demand

This indicates that the projects types infrastructure consumers (e.g. states, regions, cities) are demanding does not match supply, which is driven by our current program formula structure. TIGER’s mode-neutral system allows project proposals to reflect system needs rather than formulas, which don’t adapt well to changing conditions or geographic variations, and are often politicized. It also shows that mode-neutral program investments might better match the public preferences. A recent poll by Transportation for America and the National Association of Realtors found that the public feels the government neglects public transit and rail, and supports increased investment in these modes. Greater mode-neutrality would better serve both project sponsors and users.

National Objectives Align Local Flexibility With National Priorities

The mix of projects that eventually won funding also diverges from what the traditional program supports:

• Highway - 23%
• Rail - 19%
• Transit - 26%
• Port - 7%
• Multimodal – 25%

Some might point to TIGER’s funding criteria to explain this modal ratio. In addition to job creation, economic recovery, and mobility, the program guidance asked applicants to submit projects that would improve state of good repair, enhance economic competitiveness, improve safety, increase community livability, and support environmental sustainability. These goals surely influenced the composition of projects submissions. But applicants clearly found enough worthy projects that they also felt would support these goals. This shows that states, regions, and cities can retain the flexibility to identify high-value local projects while also advancing goals of national value. A mix of national and local goals should inform investment decisions in a reformed program.

Performance- and Merit-Based Process Could Increase Public Confidence

TIGER relies on a clear, merit-based project selection process that stresses performance toward national goals. The process was transparent and well documented, and will surely be well scrutinized. Emulating these qualities in federal programs might increase public confidence in our overall policy. Public opinion of our transportation program over recent years has fallen due to distrust of earmarks, media infatuation with “pork-barrel” projects, and boondoggles like the Bridge to Nowhere. Merit-based project selection would better demonstrate the relative value of selected projects while weeding out many pork-barrel projects that are partly to blame for the lack of public faith in the program. Transparent documentation would allow for greater public scrutiny of decisions and help to inform project and policy debate. Both should become central features of many of our transportation programs.

Encouraging Innovation and Ambition Despite Challenges

What’s most striking about the successful project applications is that many were unlikely to have been funded through existing transportation programs. These projects were multi-modal, complex, high-priced, spanned several jurisdictions, or had innovative features. Such factors are needless obstacles to funding, and suppress valuable projects. The current program’s standardized, narrowly focused formulas often fail to encourage the innovation and ambition that we see in TIGER projects, and can even penalize or discourage new ideas and ambitious proposals. Federal programs should replicate the way that TIGER sought to reward innovation regardless of a project’s challenges.

A Learning Opportunity

TIGER is not a solution in and of itself. It would be challenging and impractical to rely solely on competitive programs for effective multi-year capital planning and reliable operation of the transportation network. However, TIGER offers lessons that should inform transportation authorization:

• National objectives can allow flexible local investments with national priorities.
• Mode-neutral programs can better respond to infrastructure needs, and encourage innovation.
• Performance measures can help to assess effectiveness and target funds appropriately.
• Outcome-oriented (competitive or formula) programs drive innovation and maximize diverse project benefits.
• Transparent, merit-based project selection can yield better project decisions and increase public confidence.

Each of these lessons might not apply equally to all programs that are part of a new authorization. But policymakers should thoughtfully seek to incorporate them within and across programs. This would help to reorient our federal transportation policy to be more effective at achieving important outcomes for America, make the best use of limited taxpayer dollars, and inspire public confidence that investments will pay a dividend to us all.

While the approach used for TIGER may not be a one-size-fits-all replacement for the entire surface transportation program, it offers a balanced and responsible way to prioritize funding for important infrastructure that does not fit neatly into the traditional formula model. This applies to especially large projects and those that combine multiple modes or span state boundaries, for example. The concept of establishing objective, merit-based criteria that reflect accepted goals and evaluating proposed projects through this prism is not a new approach, of course. But, the focus on how infrastructure contributes to national economic objectives, along with the modal and jurisdictional flexibility built into the TIGER mandate, is what makes this program unique in the modern-day transportation arena.

It is hard to overstate the importance of this for goods movement infrastructure, in particular, as its benefits to the economy are widely dispersed, while its negative impacts are borne locally. The constituencies for the efficient and reliable movement of goods, depending upon an extensive array of multimodal networks, typically are not in any given elected's voting district and usually do not make calls to local and state DOTs, yet the contribution of those networks to employment, tax revenues, availability of goods and access to foreign markets elevate these infrastructure needs to the highest levels of our national agenda.

Countries with more centralized governments are apt to think and act this way automatically, as many of our trading partners are currently doing, but this "sum is greater than its parts" approach is not business-as-usual for America and certainly not for awarding transportation funds. So, the opportunity to extend the TIGER program, in which more than 20 goods movement projects in 22 states captured 49% of funding, future legislation should not be passed by.

There are several opportunities to capitalize on this approach. The 2010 Senate Appropriations bill included $600 million for the National Infrastructure Investment program, a follow-on to the TIGER program.

And, the Administration has proposed the National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund (NIIFF) as part of its 2011 Budget, a similar program for grant and loan financed capitol investment in nationally or regionally significant multimodal infrastructure projects.

Meanwhile, the Surface Transportation Authorization Act developed by the House, includes the Projects of National Significance program which also seeks to address complex, multimodal capital investment needs.

TIGER has established a strong precedent, but, with only $1.5 billion in funding for $60 billion in requests, it leaves so many top-tier, worthy projects on the cutting floor. In addition to our traditional funding approaches, we should be able to find room in upcoming legislation to incorporate a competitive grant program that will continue to realize and reward more of these must-do transportation priorities for the greater economic good.