Enhancing Transportation
One of the most carefully negotiated provisions of the Senate highway bill involves "transportation enhancements," a program that provides government funding to help states "expand transportation choices and enhance the transportation experience," according to the Transportation Department. Transportation enhancements are most closely associated with bike paths or pedestrian facilities, but they can also include outdoor advertising management, archaeological planning, or environmental mitigation like cleaning up water from highway runoffs.
Conservatives dislike this program (OK, they hate it) because the projects do not "improve infrastructure condition or meaningfully reduce congestion," according to Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla. By contrast, the transportation enhancement program is important to Democrats like Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who insist that preserving alternative traveling options is a core part of the highway program.
The Senate bill would give states the option to use transportation enhancement money for other activities like saving endangered species or preserving wetlands. Beyond that, the contours of the compromise are so complicated that I frankly can't tell what states would be allowed to do or who came out on top in the negotiations. Suffice it to say that the transportation enhancement funding is still in the bill, but states would be given more options about how to use it if that language remains unchanged in the House/Senate conference committee.
Chances are that this kind of carefully crafted deal won't be unraveled by the negotiators who are trying to hammer out a much larger highway bill before the year runs out. But it isn't law yet, which means everyone who cares about alternative transportation, or about options for states, needs to keep an eye on the talks.
What is the value of the transportation enhancement program, if any? Is it really such a big deal? Are there common misconceptions about it? Is it too simplistic to call it the "bike path" money? Is the Senate compromise on satisfactory? What should we know about it that hasn't already been said? Should the program be eliminated? Should it be strengthened?
May 14, 2012 5:45 PM
The Most Popular Program at USDOT
By Keith Laughlin
President, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
Quite simply, Transportation Enhancements – or TE -- is the most popular program at the US Department of Transportation. Since its creation in ISTEA, it has provided tangible improvements in quality of life in countless communities by providing $10.4 billion for 27,000 community-based projects.
The program has been vital to the mission of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Working with local partners, the program has helped to build more than 20,000 miles of trail from unused rail corridor that is used by tens of millions of Americans every year for walking and biking.
While ten billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at, in the context of federal surface transportation spending it’s only a penny-and-a-half of every dollar.
Paradoxically, the popularity of TE projects at the local level is inversely proportional to the views of the program by many in the national transportation establishment. To them, investments in walking and biking are frills that cannot be afforded when money is tight.
So they withdraw support from a popular program and then ...
Quite simply, Transportation Enhancements – or TE -- is the most popular program at the US Department of Transportation. Since its creation in ISTEA, it has provided tangible improvements in quality of life in countless communities by providing $10.4 billion for 27,000 community-based projects.
The program has been vital to the mission of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Working with local partners, the program has helped to build more than 20,000 miles of trail from unused rail corridor that is used by tens of millions of Americans every year for walking and biking.
While ten billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at, in the context of federal surface transportation spending it’s only a penny-and-a-half of every dollar.
Paradoxically, the popularity of TE projects at the local level is inversely proportional to the views of the program by many in the national transportation establishment. To them, investments in walking and biking are frills that cannot be afforded when money is tight.
So they withdraw support from a popular program and then wring their hands that there is no political will to pass a long-term transportation reauthorization bill. What they fail to understand is that their lack of support in the political market place is simply a matter of supply and demand. They fail to supply a form of transportation that is in high demand – walking and biking – while trying to market a narrow product line – roads, roads and more roads – that no one wants.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy generated more than 10,000 emails to the 60 members of the House T&I Committee in less than 24 hours in support of the Petri-Johnson amendment to restore funding for TE. While that amendment was narrowly defeated, I think the committee took note of the public support.
So imagine this. Instead of trying to eliminate funding for active transportation, a proposal is put forward to double it. For just 3 cents on every dollar in the bill, we could probably generate more than 100,000 emails to Congress in support of passage. For just a tiny sliver of funding, we could make this a popular vote. And if we were actually part of the team, over time we could help build support for a gas tax increase because the American people are willing to pay for programs that provide tangible benefits in their local communities.
Is this likely to happen? Probably not. Too many in the highway establishment are stuck in a 1956 mindset in a 2012 world. They feel entitled to what they jealously consider their user fee and would apparently prefer to have 80 percent of nothing than 78 percent of something.
But I would love to be proven wrong.
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