TICKET TO RIDE

President Clinton signed TEA-21, the "Transportation Equity Act for the 21stCentury," into law June 9 after nearly two years of reauthorization debate. TEA-21 represents a major victory for the transportation reform movement and will allow continued institutionalization of the principles that transformed "the highway bill" into the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Actor ISTEA in 1992. These include: 1) a strong role for local governments and the public; 2) sensible planning; 3) flexibility to use funds on highways, transit or other things; 3) dedicated funding for alternatives to roads; 5)dedicated funding for system preservation.

USDOT officials say there is $198.7 billion in guaranteed funds, with up to$217 billion available depending on the actions of the Congressional Appropriations Committees each year. However, many details require clarification and the numbers will remain uncertain until Congress finalizes the technical corrections bill that has stalled in the Senate due to disagreements about using funding from the Veteran’s tobacco-related illness program as a budgetary offset.

The overall size of the bill has led many to mistakenly believe that reports of "highway funding" approaching $170 billion over six years represents money set aside solely for new highway construction. In reality, the so-called "highway title" includes funding for air quality programs, metropolitan and statewide planning, transportation enhancements including bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and eligibility for transit capital projects.

Initial STPP analysis concludes that not only will absolute dollars for community and environmental programs increase substantially, but their share of total funding will also rise. Transportation enhancements, air quality, transit and road maintenance spending are all projected to increase by as much as 50 percent based on TEA-21 authorizations and state spending patterns under ISTEA. The only category of spending projected to decrease as a share of the total is new highway capacity.

While providing more money for transportation projects than any other federal bill preceding it, TEA-21 will nonetheless have the lowest mandated spending on new highway construction ever. Funds totaling $2.2 billion for the Appalachian Regional Commission in addition to approximately $6 billion in demonstration earmarks are the only moneys technically set aside for new highway construction and amount to less than 5 percent of the bill’s total worth. Thus much of the subsequent impacts of the legislation will be determined by the effectiveness of state and local planning processes, state DOT reforms, better local government control, strengthened citizen involvement, public education and grassroots advocacy efforts already underway with increasing intensity throughout the U.S.

After being broke for what seems like forever, the MTA is going to be in the money thanks in part to TEA-21. California’s share of the huge federal funding bill will increase 45.6 percent over ‘92-’97 levels, though federal funding accounts for only 17 percent of the MTA’s budget. But the MTA is also due to get additional funding from Caltrans, which had underestimated how much money was available for the ‘96 State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) and will likely be revising its STIP fund estimate upwards as a result. (Caltrans had set money aside for seismic retrofitting in case a bond measure to fund the work didn’t pass; it did pass.) And the MTA now has an additional $400million in state funds due to suspension of the rail construction program and other cost-cutting measures.

As a result the agency could have nearly $2 billion more than it had counted on to spend over the next six years, half of that coming from TEA-21. Ironically this would be more than enough to cover the projected shortfall of$700 million that was dealt with in the recent restructuring plan just sent to the Federal Transit Administration.

Fannie Mae has committed to backing a demonstration project of the location-efficient mortgage (LEM) at a 186-unit affordable housing development to be constructed at a Metrolink station in Sylmar. Barbara Zeidman, director of Fannie Mae’s L.A. office, says she is currently talking to four banks about offering the innovative lending program -- designed to increase the attractiveness and affordability of housing in dense, transit-rich communities-- to prospective home buyers.

Transportation costs rank second only to housing costs as a household’s most significant expense. Research in SoCal shows that households in low-density, transit-poor communities own an average of more than three cars, drive35,000-66,400 miles a year, and spend $780-$1710 per month on transportation-related expenses. Conversely, those who live in denser communities with good transit access -- in southeast L.A., central Orange, South San Bernardino and northwest Riverside counties -- own fewer cars, contribute lower VMT, and save nearly $400 a month on transportation expenses.

The LEM modifies conventional underwriting by recognizing these savings, and can increase borrowing power by as much as $70,000 in compact communities well-served by transit. Applying the $400 monthly savings to an annual household income of $45,000 allows a consumer to qualify for a home selling at$169,363 rather than $128,190 with a conventional mortgage.

The goal of the LEM -- a project of STPP, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Neighborhood Technology -- is to expand homeownership in denser urban and suburban communities close to public transit. But in addition to increasing housing affordability, the LEM would also encourage more sustainable land use patterns, increase transit ridership, minimize air pollution, conserve open space, reduce demand for new road capacity, and aid in urban revitalization efforts.

Governing Magazine writes that these "are hard times for HOV lovers everywhere" and that even the erstwhile true believers concede the HOV concept is not working and that HOV lanes are not carrying the people they were intended to carry. Most HOV lanes require no more than two people per vehicle, and the number of carpoolers has been declining by 19 percent during the1980s, according to one study. Three-person carpools declined by more than 40percent; four-person carpools declined by 50 percent.

HOV enthusiasts claim the problem is in the implementation -- that many jurisdictions squeeze HOV restriction into shorter and shorter hours of the day, and that many localities [including Los Angeles] are building new lanes instead of converting existing lanes. The newest trend is to convert HOV lanes into "HOT" (high-occupancy toll) lanes that can be used by single-occupancy vehicles whose drivers pay a toll.

Riverside County Supervisor Tom Mullen believes his county is disadvantaged in attracting economic development because it lacks transportation infrastructure. And demand for a significant new transportation corridor will increase if the county’s population doubles in the next 20 years as is expected. The problem is that this transportation corridor will traverse a national forest and many significant environmentally sensitive areas.

In an attempt to avoid the lawsuits that will inevitably result, Mullen wants to pioneer a new kind of transportation planning process -- one where all parties, including environmentalists and development interests, sit down together to consider options from the beginning. The goal is to reach consensus on what kind of transportation investment to make -- freeways or multi-modal alternatives, for example -- and where to make them.

Many environmentalists worry that the construction of a major new freeway is the foregone conclusion, and note that specific plans are currently being approved for levels of development along the 215 corridor above Perris that could make freeway construction inevitable. But others believe there will be a sincere attempt to consider other options.

Coalitions are forming in other parts of the state, especially in the rapidly urbanizing Central Valley, to call on elected officials to adopt new patterns of growth protecting farmland and open space. In Fresno, for example -- where the population is expected to triple -- a coalition of business, agriculture, conservation and development interests has just launched a smart growth campaign. Among their recommendations: establishing urban growth boundaries, revising zoning ordinances, promoting mixed-use development, narrowing streets and increasing planning for pedestrian infrastructure and transit.

(From the Toronto Star) In England a group called Reclaim the Streets has been throwing spontaneous street parties since 1995 in an effort to seize public space back from the clutches of cars, concrete and commerce. The group will ambush a busy street or major intersection -- often blockading it by deliberately crashing two old cars together -- and flood it with people who transform it into a surrealistic playpen.

The space will be declared a ``street now open, "a van rigged with a powerful sound system will pump out electronic music, and jungle gyms, giant sandboxes, wading pools, couches, circus performers, musicians, dancers and food will appear. At one event guerrilla gardeners hiding under the 10-foot-wide skirt of a bagpipe-playing woman on 30-foot-high stilts drilled holes in the pavement and planted trees.

The RTSers, who have become the darlings of both the hip music press and hard-core trade unionists, describe their streetnappings as a "collective daydream." A major London party last year drew 20,000 to Trafalgar Square, and was variously described as "the best illegal rave (dance music party),'' or a "riot frenzy." Similar parties have been reported as far away as Sydney and Tel Aviv.

Organizers say the car is only partly responsible for the erosion of communal space and sites of free expression, and note that increasingly shopping malls and superstores are serving as our new town squares -- but that one only has to try passing out political pamphlets in order to be reminded this space is not truly public.

RTSers believe the act of autonomously seizing and taking up space -- as opposed to asking for permission or corporate largesse -- is part of what makes people free. ``Direct action,'' reads RTS propaganda, ``is founded on the idea that people can develop the ability for self-rule only through practice.''

Changes at STPP: STPP Executive Director Hank Dittmar has resigned to become director of STPP’s new Transportation and Quality of Life Campaign from a new office in New Mexico. STPP Deputy Director Roy Kienitz, formerly administrative assistant to U.S. Senator Patrick Moynihan, will take Hank’s place . . . Average weekday ridership on the Metro Blue Line has reached50,426, up from an average 44,900 last year.