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June
13, 2002; Volume 8, Issue 11
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CENSUS
DATA TELLS STORY OF NARROWING
CHOICES
 
More Americans Living,
Working in Places With Few
Travel Options |
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 National
Census figures released last
week show that Americans are
enduring longer commutes, and
fewer of them are able to use
transit, walking, or other means
to avoid the drive.
The average trip to work
is up more than three minutes
since 1990 to 25.5 minutes, and
a higher portion of commuters
are driving alone to work.
“These
figures confirm that travel
choices are narrowing for many
Americans when it comes to the
work trip,” said David
Burwell, President of the
Surface Transportation Policy
Project.
“More people are living
and working in places where they
have little choice but to spend
a significant part of their day
driving in traffic.”
STPP
has created a variety of
materials to help transportation
professionals, journalists, and
advocates interpret the data:
- A
new issue of “Decoding
Transportation Policy and
Practice” that looks
at the limitations of the
Census Journey to Work data
and provides other
statistics that give a
fuller picture of travel
behavior.
- Easy-to-use,
downloadable
Excel documents showing
metropolitan area, county,
and place-level
transportation Census data
for each state.
- A
brief
analysis of what the
numbers may mean, including
a look at how housing and
work patterns may have
influenced the
transportation numbers.
- A
news
release issued on the
day the national numbers
came out.
All
of this information is available
at www.transact.org.
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HILL NEWS
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| Senate
Committee Passes Highway Funding
Bill |
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 The
Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee passed
legislation on June 4, 2002
resetting TEA-21’s highway
spending baseline to $28.9
billion for FY ’03. This
amount represents an increase of
$5.7 billion over the
President’s proposed budget of
$23.3 billion, approximately
$4.4 billion below the baseline
established with TEA-21 in 1998.
This adjustment was the result
of the Revenue
Aligned Budgetary Authority
(RABA) calculations for FY
’03.
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Senate Finance Committee to Consider Welfare Legislation
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| The Senate Finance Committee is expected to consider legislation to
reauthorize the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
program in the coming weeks.
Although no specific
proposals concerning
transportation have been
introduced to date, several
Senators have recognized
transportation as one of the
major barriers blocking TANF
recipients from
self-sufficiency.
The
House bill, which passed on May
19, would freeze funding at
$16.5 billion a year in welfare
block grants to the states
partly due to the significant
drop in welfare caseloads.
House Members and others opposed
to H.R.
4737, the Personal
Responsibility, Work and Family
Promotion Act of 2002, have
noted that the bill provides no
new resources for work supports
despite the stricter work
requirements and the effects of
inflation on the TANF program.
Key
developments in the Senate
include a bi-partisan agreement
for a consensus welfare proposal
that endorses greater state
accountability, reporting
requirements and increased
funding for works supports,
potentially including
transportation. The Senate
Finance Committee could mark up
welfare legislation as early as
next week, followed by action on
the Senate floor in July or in
September after the August
recess.
To learn about opportunities
to better link work promotion,
transportation, and housing in
the TANF reauthorization, read
the joint
letter signed by more than
20 smart growth and
transportation organizations. |
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IN OTHER NEWS
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| Amtrak
Board Approves Consolidation
Plan |
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 Amtrak’s
new president David Gunn
announced on June 10, 2002 that
the organization’s governing
board plans to consolidate
authority and to improve
efficiency at the rail carrier.
In a message to workers, Gunn
said the changes are part of an
effort to “streamline
decision-making and clearly
assign authority and
responsibility.” According to
an Amtrak spokesperson, job cuts
and management changes are
likely within the next three
months. In addition, the company
plans to consolidate its mail
and express business and its
three operating divisions
(Intercity, Northeast Corridor,
and Amtrak West) and run all of
them out of Amtrak’s corporate
headquarters in Washington,
DC.
Earlier
this month, Gunn cautioned that
Amtrak would likely shut down
service in July if the company
was unable to obtain a $200
million loan to cover budgetary
shortfalls.
For
more information, click
here.
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Former
New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial
Joins STPP Board |
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 Marc
Morial, the Mayor of New Orleans
from 1994 to 2002, has joined
STPP’s Board of Directors. Mr.
Morial’s administration was
marked by his work to revitalize
neighborhoods and build the
local economy through
infrastructure investments.
Additionally, he served as
President of the U.S. Conference
of Mayors from 2001-2002, where
he led that organization’s
national rail initiative to
advance development of rail
travel in the United States. Mr.
Morial is a long-time believer
in STPP’s work, and spoke at
the Ten Years of Progress
anniversary dinner in December.
He joins eight current
Board members:
Sarah Campbell (chair),
David Burwell, Scott Bernstein,
Hank Dittmar, Tom Downs, Judith
Espinosa, Kathryn Higgins, and
Jessica Mathews.
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LOCAL
REPORT
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| Victory
for Transit in Colorado |
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 Denver
is likely to become the next
example of a growing trend of
communities choosing to tax
themselves to invest in greater
transportation choice and
affordability through transit.
Legislation recently
signed into law by Colorado's
Governor Owens gives the Denver
Regional Transportation District
standing authority to put sales
tax measures on the ballot.
RTD is the state’s
largest transit agency, serving
Denver’s six-county metro
area. Prior to this legislation,
RTD could not go to the ballot
for additional funding for rail
and bus projects, and was the
only local region in the state
that didn't have legislative
authority to do so.
 The
new law also created the
first-ever dedicated state
transit funding in Colorado by
requiring that 10% of the state
sales tax dedicated to
transportation be spent on
transit.
Colorado was one of only
5 states that had no dedicated
source of state transit funding.
Finally, the bill enables
counties in the RTD area to use
county dollars to provide
transit service in coordination
with RTD.
Recognizing the
importance of transit to
sustained economic prosperity,
the Denver Chamber of Commerce
led the effort to pass the
transit bill as part of a
package including additional
state highway funds and tolling
authority for CDOT. The effort
was spearheaded by the
Denver-based Transit Alliance,
which organized a large, diverse
coalition of local governments,
business groups and community
groups in support of the transit
bill.
For
more details and the text of the
bill, click
here.
submitted by Kelly
Nordini
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IN
THE MEDIA
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Florida
Paper Runs Weeklong Series on
Transportation
 Beginning
on June 2, 2002, the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel ran a
weeklong editorial series on the
region’s transportation crisis
called "Crisis: Getting
Nowhere Fast." The series
addressed issues of transit,
smart growth, and land-use
planning in the region, and
daily articles presented many
different options for the
region.
To
view the series, click
here.
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REPORTS
& RESOURCES
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TCSP
Program Report Released
FHWA
recently published a report
highlighting accomplishments and
lessons learned under the
Transportation and Community and
System Preservation (TCSP)
Program. Click
here for more information.
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New
‘Bikeability Checklist’ Now
Online
 The
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration and the
Pedestrian and Bicycle
Information Center at the
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill released a
“Bikeability Checklist”
designed to help people rate how
friendly their communities are
for bicycling, identify problem
areas, and find short- and
long-term solutions to improve.
For
more information, click
here.
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Study
Links Auto Use to Neighborhood
Design
For
decades, city planners have
dismissed calls for building
better cities, saying there is
only anecdotal evidence that
"smart growth" works.
But authors of a new,
peer-reviewed study from the
Natural Resources Defense
Council say their research
proves for the first time that
better urban design can reduce
auto use and relieve the traffic
congestion and pollution that
come with it.
The
researchers' analysis of the San
Francisco, Los Angeles and
Chicago metropolitan areas found
a direct link between the amount
people drive and city attributes
like neighborhood density,
transit access, and pedestrian-
and bicycle-friendliness.
According to the authors, those
attributes measure an area's
"location efficiency,"
and, not surprisingly, the more
efficient the location, the less
people drive.
The
study, "Location
Efficiency: Neighborhood and
Socio-Economic Characteristics
Determine Auto Ownership and Use
- Studies in Chicago, Los
Angeles and San Francisco"
by John Holtzclaw, Robert Clear,
Hank Dittmar, David Goldstein
and Peter Haas, appeared in the
March 2002 issue of
Transportation Planning and
Technology.
For
more information, click
here. |
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CALENDAR
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July
31
American Public Transportation
Association
Intermodal
Operations Planning Workshop
July 31 – August 2, 2002 –
New York, NY
June
21
MassCentral
Rail-Trail "Golden Spike II"
11am- 2 pm - Bentley College,
Waltham, MA
Congressional
Hearing Schedule
June
13
Senate
Committee on Banking, Housing,
& Urban Affairs
Subcommittee on Housing and
Transportation
Hearing on "TEA-21:
A National Partnership"
10:00 a.m
Dirksen 538
June 18
House
Transportation &
Infrastructure Committee
Subcommittee on Highways and
Transit
Hearing on Intermodalism: Moving
America’s People and Goods
10:00 a.m.
2167 Rayburn House Office
Building
June
20
House
Transportation &
Infrastructure Committee
Subcommittee on Highways
and Transit
Hearing on Federal Transit
Capital Grants Programs
2:00 p.m.
2167 Rayburn House Office
Building
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