Keeping the Stimulus in Focus


The Friends of Earth have released a report titled “Road to Ruin” identifying 27 highway projects they are unnecessary and unbalanced. The report underscores a key imbalance between road and transit funding from the Federal Government.

Uneven Playing Field–To gain approval and federal funding, transit projects face far more intense scrutiny than highway projects. While this policy helps ensure that federal transit dollars are well spent, it also discriminates in favor of highways.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) evaluates and rates each New Starts proposal and requires a comprehensive planning and project development process that considers impacts on employment, operating efficiency, cost effectiveness, land -use policies, and local funding commitment. Highway projects face a far less stringent analysis. Most projects receive an exclusion from review, while less than 3 percent require an Environmental Impact Statement, which is primarily a consideration of the project’s direct environmental and traffic impacts. Even in these cases, cost-benefit,
land-use, and performance analyses are rarely required or conducted, and state
departments of transportation (DOT) do not have to provide hard evidence that a proposed project will be economically or socially beneficial. And while the FTA measures transit projects against similar proposals and projects in other states, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) draws no such comparison between highway projects.

FHWA provides limited project oversight once a highway project has been approved, but FTA carefully monitors the progress of each transit project, including financial performance and schedule adherence.

Meanwhile, over at Streetsblog, they’d like to put the stimulus package on a Road Diet.


24 responses to “Keeping the Stimulus in Focus”

  1. I would definitely agree there is an uneven playing field, but for a different reason. When a highway project is built using Federal funding, the local match dollars come from the highway users by way of motorist paid fuel taxes, license and registration fees. When a transit project is built using Federal funding, not only are the Federal dollars coming from motorist paid fuel taxes, but the burden for local match dollars on taxpayers instead of the match funding coming from transit passengers through the farebox. Likewise with bicycle infrastructure, roadway dollars are siphoned off and the user bicyclists are directly charged nothing, zip, nada, thereby becoming freeloaders. I am all for leveling the playing field IF and WHEN transit becomes financially self-sustainable and bicyclists pay their own way instead of expecting somebody else to fund the specialized infrastructure they rant for.

  2. Roads don’t pay for themselves – this idea that they do via fuel taxes, license & registration, etc. is a total fallacy. Roads don’t “pay their own way” any more than transit and cycling.

  3. “Likewise with bicycle infrastructure, roadway dollars are siphoned off and the user bicyclists are directly charged nothing, zip, nada, thereby becoming freeloaders.”

    I see, you mean like the Savings and Loan industry?

  4. Wait a minute, I take that back.

    The savings and loan industry, which has just “siphoned off” {your words} $700 billion of OUR tax dollars, (not including the ‘profit’ they stole from the poor suckers who they ‘loaned’ money too) are not “freeloaders” {your words}, they are

    THIEVES!

    Your making statements about bicycles while this other S**T is going on?

    GIMME A FREAKING BREAK WILL YA!

  5. Friends of the Earth?

    Who are the enemies? Those who drive and use roads?

    Fred Reed?
    Oh another liberal claiming to be “trying to understand conservatives”.

    Who then goes on to psycho-analyze and characterize conservatives the same way Olberman, Randi Rhodes or any other routine lib would.
    Getting everything wrong on the way to describing their take in ways that best justifies their own liberalism. Or progressiveness.

    To understand progressives, read Reed.

  6. Time’s running out, Terry.

    Why not tax pedestrians for their use of the sidewalk? Freeloading heel-stompers, the lot of them, eh?

  7. Great news!!

    Oil dropped to $34/bbl this AM.

    That means people will spend less of their hard earned money on heat and gasolene and more low income people will be able to afford to drive instead of waste their time on mass transit. Fewer transit riders means less tax money will be wasted supporting transit operations.

    Unfortunately some people will consider this bad news.

    Thanks
    JK

  8. Grant:
    I seriously doubt that you will get an answer from Terry. It is at this point that his argument falls apart. The underlying point of his position is that the “users”–and only the “users”–of a particular public service should pay for that service. He has focused on bicyclists. Yet, as you have pointed out in asking about an other type of “user”(pedestrians), his argument starts to crumble. If you then take that same assertion to other publicly paid services it becomes even more silly.
    Such as;
    Schools-under Terry’s assertion only children or their parents should pay for education despite all of society benefiting from an educated populace
    Libraries-see above
    Parks-it was proven long ago that natural open spaces improve the health of a urban area, yet Terry would have you believe that parks are just a huge waste of tax money
    Military–Again, if you apply Terry’s argument to the US military only those people that are directly defended by US forces should have to pay for their upkeep.

    As you can see Terry’s assertion is pure nonsense-and any reply by him would simply be more “logical” mumbo-jumbo-I would not hold your breath.

  9. Great news!!

    Unemployment rose to 8.1% in Oregon!

    That means people will have less money to spend on heat and gasoline and more low income people will be forced to walk instead of waste their time on mass transit. Fewer people working means less payroll tax money will be available to support transit operations that benefit the entire community.

    Unfortunately some people will consider this bad news.

  10. Oil is cheap right now because demand is down. As Jeff points out, fewer people have jobs, so commute trips are down. Also, people have begun changing their driving habits in recognition that gas prices are more likely to go up, not down, over the long haul.

    OPEC is decreasing production to bring the price back up, so enjoy cheap gas while it’s here.

    “The cartel (OPEC) has not faced such a challenging environment since the early 1980s. Oil consumption is set to decline for the first time in 25 years because of the economic crisis.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/worldbusiness/18opec.html?scp=2&sq=opec&st=cse

  11. Back to Chris’ original post…

    Could it be the reason that the FTA has to be more selective about transit projects (as opposed to FHWA’s highway projects) is that most FTA capital projects are new construction, whereas most FHWA projects are upgrades of existing roads?

    Would anyone here, even myself (or even Terry Parker) suggest a full-fledged study on, say, replacing a 20 year old bus with a brand new model? Of course not. (TriMet seems to like that approach, I’m not quite sure why…) Just as I wouldn’t expect the FTA to demand a huge study for TriMet to replace an old station, add a siding, or purchase new LRVs – it’s not reasonable to subject UPGRADING or even maintaining an existing road to some type of criteria designed for new construction.

    Do new roads get thoroughly scrutinzed? Absolutely, and even more so than a transit project. The problem (that transit supporters have) is that highways are used by many different groups. It’s hard to argue against a road that’ll carry 30,000 cars a day, and relieve pressure off of other, less desirable, neighborhood streets – taking long haul trucks away from homes and schools, give fire and police vehicles a safer route to reach emergencies, so on and so forth.

    It’s hard to find that kind of extensive benefit from transit; the best one can offer are indirect benefits such as “(transit) will reduce trips taken by automobile”. (And, in Portland, that hasn’t entirely been proven true – as we can all see, trips on the Sunset Highway increased dramatically in the years after Westside MAX opened.)

    I agree that ANY form of government spending needs to be scrutinized, and I agree that road projects deserve no less scrutiny…but transit supporters can’t just argue that transit should automatically be better, and roads should automatically be ineffective. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not support the Newberg-Dundee bypass (it’s a ridiculous, “over the top” project that costs too much, does too little – to use a phrase often cited of MAX), and there is a much, much cheaper alternative that doesn’t require building new roads, and in fact even involves some transit investment); I’m not a fan of the I-5 to 99W connector either. At the same time, we’ve wasted a lot of money on WES while ignoring cries for transit now all in the name of a bias for rail against cost-effective bus projects.

  12. trips on the Sunset Highway increased dramatically in the years after Westside MAX opened

    Didn’t development and activity also increase dramatically during that time, especially considering that the area is a part of Silicon Forest? Also, MAX only follows the Sunset until 217, and doesn’t help as much for places west of there near or north of the Sunset, because it instead serves Beaverton. (Jim Howell did argue for putting MAX along the Sunset instead of to the south)

  13. Jeff F Says:Great news!!

    Unemployment rose to 8.1% in Oregon!

    Unfortunately some people will consider this bad news.
    JK: Another progressive who cares not for the plight of the poor.

    Thanks
    JK

  14. Another progressive who cares not for the plight of the poor.

    JK, Jeff was being sarcastic.

    Thanks,
    Your moderator.

  15. As you can see Terry’s assertion is pure nonsense-and any reply by him would simply be more “logical” mumbo-jumbo-I would not hold your breath.

    Be careful not to cross the line from debating arguments into getting personal by discussing motivations or predicting future actions.

  16. Jason McHuff wrote: Didn’t development and activity also increase dramatically during that time, especially considering that the area is a part of Silicon Forest?

    Sunset Highway traffic has been increasing for years…but in the year that MAX opened, traffic volumes spiked up, continued an upward trend the following year, before returning to the same level of growth as in years past.

    It would be expected that the introduction of MAX should have at least slowed the level of growth (or, preferably, stopped growth) which MAX clearly did not do. The spike in ADT, however, is a surprise.

  17. It would be expected that the introduction of MAX should have at least slowed the level of growth (or, preferably, stopped growth) which MAX clearly did not do. The spike in ADT, however, is a surprise.

    IF you control for all sorts of other things – jobs at each end of the corridor, residents at each end, and so on, yes, introducing high-capacity transit should take some users off the highway. Apparently, that did not happen.

    I’m open to the suggestion that there are plenty of people who like having the MAX near their neighborhood but still prefer to drive in to work [or more likely, live somewhere that isn’t especially convenient on the MAX], and that MAX could actually increase highway congestion on the corridors it serves. If that’s the case, you could at least give MAX credit for increasing housing value and sales in the suburban developments that pop up past Beaverton.

  18. MRB wrote: you could at least give MAX credit for increasing housing value and sales in the suburban developments

    I’ll certainly give MAX some of that credit.

    I’m not sure that’s credit that our civic leaders would be proud of as it helped increase housing costs to the point that many metro-area residents can’t afford to own housing (over 50% of Beaverton residents do not live in owner-occupied housing), and it has created urban sprawl – housing on top of formerly productive farmlands, housing in the Bethany and Cedar Mill areas, a ballooning of Hillsboro’s population, and has required MASSIVE investment in local streets, particularly arterials, in the region (i.e. Cornelius Pass, Cornell Road, Baseline Road, and Evergreen Road (now Evergreen Parkway) all having been turned from quiet two and three lane roads to five-lane arterials). 185th Avenue is another example, going to eight-lanes wide through Tanasbourne (matched only by Sunnyside Road in Clackamas).

    We were sold “transit-oriented development” where most of the residents would use MAX. What we got was more, more, more traffic – resulting in the forced expansion of our roadway network, not the other way around (as some very vocal anti-road/pro-transit advocates would suggest would happen as soon as you widen a road). There’s a reason I don’t live in that part of Portland anymore, and I won’t move back.

    (It doesn’t help that The Streets at Tanasbourne was built with little transit access. At least Bridgeport Village was built next to a transit center, and construction of that mall resulted in an expansion of one of the transit center’s parking lots.)

  19. Erik Halstead Says: Sunset Highway traffic has been increasing for years…but in the year that MAX opened, traffic volumes spiked up, continued an upward trend the following year, before returning to the same level of growth as in years past.

    It would be expected that the introduction of MAX should have at least slowed the level of growth (or, preferably, stopped growth) which MAX clearly did not do. The spike in ADT, however, is a surprise.
    JK:
    Actually this is consistent with what a number of LRT critics have been saying:
    Light rail has no net effect of driving – it does not reduce driving or congestion.

    I usually avoid bringing this up, as I have not dug up the data to support it, but I have certainly talked to people who used to ride the bus, but started driving when MAX opened because their commute got longer. I have heard others say that the walk to the transit stop got too long to walk for an older person.

    As to data, Trimet allegedly did a rider survey when the first MAX opened and found that 2/3 of the riders were previous bus riders. That means only 1/3 were not former transit users. What Trimet does not seem to talk about is the number of former bus riders that went to driving or car pools because of the inconvenience of light rail. I have seen claims that transit lost enough riders to make up for those gained, with the net new transit ridership being zero.

    BTW, the claim that 2/3 of LRT riders were already transit users is widely used & referenced on PortlandFacts.com.

    Thanks
    JK

  20. I’ve been back living in Portland since 1984. I lived in Hillsboro in the late 50s and in Portland in the early 1970s. The conversion of westside farmland to suburbia can scarcely be laid at the feet, er rails, of MAX. You might as well blame Intel or Tektronix and its spin-offs. Traffic has increased because the population has increased and light rail simply does not have the capacity to absorb the new commuters.

    Jim Karlock: What Trimet does not seem to talk about is the number of former bus riders that went to driving or car pools because of the inconvenience of light rail.

    Perhaps they don’t talk about it because it’s insignificant, or because the numbers don’t exist. If they do, please trot them out. With any luck, the numbers will explain how that “inconvenience” has caused packed trains during the commute hours.

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