Transit News

Statement in Response to Chairman Oberstar's White Paper Release and Recent Bills for National Transportation Objectives

By Emily Rusch, State Director, CALPIRG

For decades transportation funding focused on helping Americans drive more. We're seeing growing interest in Congress in helping Americans to drive less. That's good for reducing our oil dependence, cutting global warming pollution, and reducing gridlock. In short, it's good news for California.

California has the two most traffic congested urban regions in the county, and has committed to some of the country's most ambitious goals to reduce global warming pollution as well. Our population is also expected to grow from 37 million people to 50 million people by 2030, which creates further urgency to help more Californians travel without cars.

The Blueprint released by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Oberstar today has a lot to like for California. For example:

• Historically the federal government has chipped in up to 80 percent of highway construction costs, but only 50 percent of the cost of building new transit infrastructure. The Blueprint is not clear about financial details, but suggests that the blueprint “equalizes the treatment of proposed transit projects”

• A new Metropolitan Mobility and Access Program to help address congestion in the largest urban regions in the country could benefit many of California's most congested regions.

• A new Office of Livability which will focus on making streets more friendly to pedestrian, bike and transit users could support California's own efforts to develop “complete streets” to increase mobility on our roadways.
  

• California is further along than any other state on a true high-speed rail system connecting all of our major population centers. The Blueprint calls for $50 billion in financing for high-speed rail over the next few years.

• The Blueprint also calls for a national infrastructure bank, which has the potential to help cities like Los Angeles, who have a significant local revenue stream with the passage of Measure R but need to expand public transit options faster than they can raise funds.

As always, the devil is in the details. The key question that we are asking is this: Do the policies and programs match up with the goals outlined in the “National Transportation Objectives Act of 2009”? Representatives Holt, Inslee, and Carnahan introduced HR. 2724 earlier this week as companion legislation to S. 1036, which is sponsored by Senators Lautenberg and Rockefeller. The bills already have the support of more than 150 organizations.

Resources:

The Blueprint: http://transportation.house.gov/

Organizational letter of support for H.R. 2724: https://www.calpirg.org/uploads/RQ/bj/RQbjWueQNhDsIMLtRVhQtA/HR2724-letter-FINAL.pdf

Transportation for America, a national coalition working for transportation reform: http://t4america.org/

CALPIRG's recent report, Connecting California, which highlights key opportunities to expand public transit in California: http://www.calpirg.org/home/reports/report-archives/world-class-public-transit/world-class-public-transit/connecting-california

House Members' Requests for Earmarks in the Transportation Reauthorization bill: https://realtime.dabbledb.com/page/transportationauthorizationearmarkrequests/gqxHHASs