Federal Funding

Without its transit system, the New York region would emit 17.4 million more metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, the MTA announced yesterday. By taking cars off the road, decreasing congestion so the remaining cars emit less, and promoting dense land use patterns, the MTA is making a major dent in the region's carbon footprint. As a result, the authority is making the case that transit agencies should receive revenue generated by potential federal climate legislation. 

Streetsblog founder Aaron Naparstek passes along this tale of legislative dysfunction from sunny Phoenix, Arizona. The narrator is Arizona state legislator Steve Farley, a public artist and community activist who recently brought home a $63 million TIGER grant to fund a new streetcar in Tucson. It's a good thing the feds provide funding opportunities outside the Highway Trust Fund formula, or else it would be even harder to invest in efficient, sustainable transportation in Arizona -- a state that goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid spending on transit. Farley's story explains why this is still the case:

As Tax Day prompts a rush of political rallies and media coverage, it's worth looking back at the history of the federal levy that helps pay for transportation projects: the gas tax.

Eight Democrats yesterday joined nearly the entire transportation universe, from road-builders to transit advocates, to warn the three Senate authors of a new climate bill against raising gas taxes without using the money for infrastructure. Their message, translated from the often impenetrable language of Washington: Imposing new fuel fees that are not routed to transport projects could torpedo the next long-term federal bill -- which is already on life support.

As Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) prepare to unveil a new climate change measure that includes a tax on motor fuels, eight of their colleagues are urging the trio not to forget local transportation planning -- and warning that any new gas tax should be used to help pay for a new federal infrastructure bill, not redirected for other purposes.

Budget shortfalls exacerbated by the lingering recession have forced 84 percent of local transit agencies to hike fares, cut service, or begin considering one or both of those options since the beginning of 2009, according to a report released yesterday by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

At a rally yesterday headlined by Rev. Jesse Jackson, a new coalition of labor unions and environmental organizations stood together to demand more funding for transit agencies across the country. With service cuts afflicting bus and train riders in dozens of major cities, the "Keep America Moving" coalition is focused on securing funds to maintain transit service. Their first goal is passing legislation in Congress that would make federal operating aid for transit permanent. 

House infrastructure committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), facing steep political odds in his push to pass a new six-year federal transportation bill this year, has begun to pitch an outside-the-box solution to the financing shortfall that is still stalling congressional action: Treasury bonds.

At an event in Minneapolis today, House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) announced his support for giving urban transit agencies more flexibility to spend federal transportation formula money on operating -- a change in the current law that has already won the backing of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood but has split the transit industry.