Campaign Connection
Tell Us What’s Happening in Your Region!   Campaign Connection is a look at transportation and land use reform around the country.  To share news developments happening in your region, contact STPP! 
 

Environmental justice (EJ) continues to frame the transportation planning process in Gary, Indiana.  Last September, U.S. DOT granted the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) its MPO certification with continuing federal oversight despite EJ complaints raised by a local faith-based organization.  Instead, the U.S. DOT awarded NIRPC an EJ Challenge Grant to help it respond to environmental justice concerns.    

NIRPC, the Indiana Department of Transportation, and the Northwest Indiana Environmental Justice Project at Indiana University Northwest are now initiating an environmental justice strategy to improve involvement by low-income and minority communities in the transportation planning process.  This spring, transportation equity consultants will begin training planners to identify the communities most affected by negative aspects of transportation plans such as increased exposure to air pollution or inadequate transit access to jobs, using GIS tools.  In January, NIRPC recommended that a proposed commuter rail extension serving existing communities be prioritized over a proposed extension that would most likely have induced sprawl. 

Despite this progress, the Interfaith Federation which filed the EJ complaint believes transportation equity still has a long road ahead before NIRPC and Indiana DOT heed their call for transportation spending parity between highways, commuter rail, and buses—or a third of transportation funds for each mode.  The coalition of Northwest Indiana congregations is now working with Lake County’s newly formed Regional Transportation Committee to determine the region’s transit needs.  The group is also calling for better coordination between the three bus systems that serve the Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago municipalities in Lake County.

For more information on transportation planning in the Gary region visit http://www.nirpc.org .  To reach the Interfaith Federation, contact Cindy Bush at 219.886.3647 or  fednwi@aol.com .

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign is celebrating its successful campaign to bring variable toll pricing to the New York region.  Variable toll pricing, also known as value pricing or congestion pricing, applies market forces to rush hour travel by charging peak-period drivers more than off-peak drivers.  The New Jersey Turnpike Authority set the trend in January 2000 when it approved a two-tier toll increase.  In effect as of last September, the first increase created an incentive for electronic toll payments (E-ZPass) and offered significant discounts for off-peak travel.  The second increase, set to take effect in January 2003, will make those incentives even more dramatic.  Eventually, cash payers will pay 37 percent more than E-ZPass users and peak hour drivers will pay 13 percent more than off-peak driver. 

This March, the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey began charging higher tolls at rush hour at several of its bridge and tunnel crossings.  While the plan approved by Governors Pataki and Whitman does not increase the tolls at the levels called for by local advocates, it continues to  represents a significant commitment to pricing.  Tolls for peak-period drivers will be $1.00 higher than for off-peak drivers.  Tri-State estimates that the Port Authority and NJ Turnpike congestion pricing programs are among the largest road pricing schemes in the world in terms of cars affected.

Tri-State and the Connecticut Fund for the Environment also recently launched the Connecticut Transportation Choices Coalition.  As a first step, the CT coalition published a “green paper” outlining a comprehensive transportation reform program for state agencies, municipalities and metropolitan planning organizations that builds on previous induced travel research.  Recommendations include reorienting public investment and local planning to make transit work better for the public. 

For more information, visit the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s website at http://www.tstc.org.

Last June, Pennsylvania adopted its own “smart growth” legislation uniquely tailored to the traditions, law and politics of the state.  Amendments to the Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), the statute giving Pennsylvania’s municipalities the authority to regulate land use, now enable counties and municipalities to enter cooperative agreements to plan together for both development and conservation of resources.  The legislation corrects Pennsylvania’s prior land use laws that contributed to sprawl by requiring each of its 2,568 municipalities to plan and zone for all uses ­to accommodate projected growth. The rules essentially required communities to plan to become a small city if they chose to plan and zone (many did not). Moreover, the regional mechanisms for coordinating decisions among municipalities were cumbersome and little-used. 

With the passage of Acts 67 and 68, counties and municipalities can now designate growth areas and rural resource areas, target infrastructure to growth areas, and provide for all uses over the region of the plan.  State agencies are also authorized to prioritize state funds for multi-municipal planning areas.  Municipalities participating in regional planning processes also retain control over local implementation—an issue in a state that adheres strictly to home rule. 

The legislation provides a model for sound land use reform for states whose land use authority is delegated to diverse local governments and where land use laws are enabling and permissive, rather than mandatory.  10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania attributes the new smart growth act to the leadership of the bill’s sponsors, State Representative David Steil and Senator Jim Gerlach, solid bipartisan support, and a climate for change fostered by Governor Ridge’s 21st Century Environment Commission, which identified responsible land use as the most important issue for the next century. 

State agencies and 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, the statewide group that led a multi-year land use campaign culminating in the bill’s passage, have initiated an education effort at the local level to explain the new laws and support implementation efforts.  Multi-municipal planning efforts are now underway in over half of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.

For more information, contact 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania at 877.568.2225 or visit http://www.10000friends.org.

In Washington, the Transportation Choices Coalition and other state grassroots groups have launched a “1/3 for Choices Campaign” to advocate that 1/3 of new transportation revenue be dedicated to transit, bicycling, walking, and other transportation choices.  According to local advocates, the state legislative advocacy campaign is rooted in the controversial 1999 state ballot initiative that reduced funding for transit and supported by the environmental, business, and labor coalition that helped defeat another anti-transit measure last year. 

The emerging coalition is now urging state policymakers to advance an overall transportation package with a budget that directs 1/3 of all new state transportation funds to transportation choices.  Transportation Choices Coalition and the 1/3 for Choices Coalition have also recommended specific projects be included in the budget such as vanpools, cash incentives for trip reduction, and funding for smart growth programs.  This February, the Transportation Choices Coalition, Bicycle Alliance of Washington, and People for Puget Sound met with all 45 members of the House and Transportation Committees and delivered one-third slices of pie to their offices to bring attention to the campaign.

This April, 50 state urban and suburban legislators formed the Washington State Legislature’s Mobility Caucus.  Caucus members have submitted a letter to Governor Gary Locke recommending that 33.3 percent of the total of new transportation funds be directed bus, rail, and trip reduction.  Governor Locke’s new budget proposal funds transportation choice programs at 18 percent of the total transportation budget--14 percent of which goes to HOV lanes and the remaining 4 percent for public transit and transportation demand management programs.     

For more information about the campaign and other Washington State news, visit http://www.transportationchoices.org 

Alternative transportation activists are beginning to think that Wisconsin’s long transportation winter may finally thaw. Preliminary engineering is nearly complete for a high-speed rail project to connect Madison and Milwaukee. Given the leadership role played by Wisconsin’s former Gov. Tommy Thompson and current WisDOT Secretary Terry Mulcahy, Wisconsin could receive federal support to build high speed rail from a $12 billion bonding program that has a good chance of passing in Congress this year.

The state is also halfway through three alternatives analyses for rail transit: Madison/Dane County, the City of Milwaukee, and the corridor leading from Chicago into Milwaukee.  In the Madison area, the state department of transportation is covering preliminary engineering costs and seeking funds to build rail transit as part of an agreement regarding the highly controversial widening of USH 12 north of Madison.  In Milwaukee, funding for a downtown rail transit “circulator” in Milwaukee came from an agreement with the state regarding use of federal funds allocated in ISTEA.  Advocates are hopeful that at least two of the three projects will move forward this year.

Meanwhile, Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE) is working with other environmental organizations as well as the four statewide organizations representing cities, municipalities, towns, and counties to support an alternative to a new, 20-year state highway plan. Active in three past state biennial budget sessions, the “Fair Share Coalition” is calling upon the legislature to establish a “multi-program” long range transportation investment plan to indicate how the state will fund local roads, bus and rail transit, and passenger rail, and not merely highways between now and 2020.

Contact Rob Kennedy for more information: 608.251.9164 or robkennedy@igc.org.