Posts by Tanya Snyder

According to a brief by the Georgetown Climate Center, "ArrivalStar has brought suit against at least ten transit entities, and at least eight more have received demand letters." GCC, which convenes the Transportation Climate Initiative, worries that the suits can create a chilling effect, discouraging agencies from employing vehicle tracking technologies. Real-time bus arrival information has been shown to increase ridership, taking cars off the road and reducing vehicle emissions.

Jones' strategy is not to sue transit agencies for all they're worth, but to offer them a relatively low-cost way to keep these cases out of court. In fact, not one of his lawsuits has gone all the way through trial. They always end up settling, usually for $50,000 to $75,000, though the demands can go as high as $200,000.

"That's $75,000 of taxpayer money that's going into ArrivalStar's pockets without the validity of the patent ever being challenged," said attorney Babak Siavoshy, who represents the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "If they make the settlement amount low enough, where the costs and benefits favor settling, then most municipalities are going to settle, and it costs them a lot of money, because the cost of litigation is a big stick."

Siavoshy and EFF want the US Patent and Trademark Office to review Jones' patents. EFF is looking for what's known as "prior art": examples of real-time vehicle tracking being discussed before Jones took out the patent, to show that he wasn't the first one with the idea. Advocates also think they can prove that the systems Jones patented were too "obvious" or "non-novel"—that they were logical extensions of existing technology. Abstract ideas, with no technology or product attached, are not patentable.

ArrivalStar attorney Anthony Dowell contends that the patents are defensible and that Jones has the right to seek money from the agencies. "Just because an entity is funded with taxpayer dollars doesn't give them the right to steal property," said Dowell in a recent interview with ArsTechnica. "My client now owns 34 patents that are being infringed, and what else is he to do?"

The transit agencies I called couldn't comment, since the case was pending. But the general counsel of the Monterey-Salinas Transit Corporation, David Laredo, said that they're not challenging the validity of the patents. Their strategy is to assert that the vendor who sold the technology to the transit agency (Trapeze, a spinoff of Siemens) does hold a license from ArrivalStar, and if they don't, that's the vendor's problem, not theirs.

To date, ArrivalStar has reached settlements with the city of Fairfax, Virginia; Boston's MBTA; New York City's MTA; Chicago's Metra; and the Maryland Transit Authority. Suits are pending against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's PATH; King County, Washington; the Monterey-Salinas Transit Corporation; the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority; and Portland's TriMet.

In the past, transit agencies may not have talked to each other about these lawsuits because Jones reportedly insists on a nondisclosure agreement as part of the settlement. He only brings a few suits at a time, using a divide-and-conquer strategy, taking care not to demand so much from these public entities that they would pursue litigation.

The recent focus of Jones' lawsuits on transit agencies has inspired Georgetown Climate Center and the American Public Transit Association to get these entities to communicate more and to develop a more cohesive strategy. So far, though, Jones' strategy has been working.

But since Jones brought a suit against the U.S. Postal Service last November, the federal government is now affected. His suit charges the post office with violating his patents with its package tracking services.

Since USPS is a federal agency, the Department of Justice is now involved, defending the post office against ArrivalStar's claims by saying the patents are invalid and that no infringement occurred. Advocates and attorneys are trying to persuade the feds to broaden their interest in ArrivalStar from just USPS to all the transit agencies that have been affected.

After all, the transit agencies, by and large, bought the GPS tracking devices with federal dollars, in pursuit of federal transportation goals. Publicly available real-time transit information—on smartphone apps, transit agency websites, or on screens in bus stops and train stations—makes transit a more attractive option, with the potential to reduce congestion and pollution. SAFETEA-LU, the transportation authorization the country is still (amazingly) working under, specifically requires states to identify ways to deliver real-time transit information to the public.

Georgetown Climate Center Director Vicki Arroyo told Streetsblog that she's had some "early but hopeful discussions" with senior USDOT officials.

"Earlier, some of the more junior people within the federal government were not keen to take this on, saying they didn't have a dog in the fight. Now they do," she said, referring to the suit against the postal service. "We're hoping they won't just look at this as a one-off matter. There's a much higher public stake here."

A version of this article was originally posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

Editor's note: The MBTA's response brief to ArrivalStar rebuts the company's actions with powerful rhetoric that's unusual for a legal filing:

This lawsuit offends any notion of justice. The mission of Defendant Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ("MBTA") is to transport its 1.1 million riders safely and on time every day. As a service to the riding public, the MBTA alterts riders via its website, text message or email whether one of its vehicles is running late or has otherwise encountered some difficulty or delay. Though the MBTA is a cash-strapped public entity, its notification service is free of charge to anyone who wishes to subscribe. The MBTA makes no money from this service. The service provides a benefit to the riding public, by whom it has been well received.

Plaintiffs ArrivalStar S.A. and Melvino Technologies Limited (collectively, "Plaintiffs" or "Arrivalstar"), two offshore companies, allege, in a conclusory and unspecified manner, that the technology underpinning the MBTA's alert system infringes on two patents that they claim to own. Plaintiffs do not allege they produce or manufacture anything. They do not allege they sell anything. The primary, if not sole, purpose of Arrivalstar is to exact tribute from any person that Arrivalstar asserts is using inventions claimed in patents that they purport to own, either in the form of royalties or a strike suit such as this one. The Court may take notice of the fifteen suits Plaintiffs, or a related entity, have brought in federal district courts involving the same two patents at issue in this dispute. ...

In any event, the practice of monetizing patents through serial litigation by "non-practicing entities" or "NPEs," as they are euphemistically known, is unseemly and inimical to the fundamental purpose of United States patent laws of encouraging innovation and its introduction into the economy. The business model of Plaintiffs is no less obvious than the patents themselves, and shakedowns such as this one should be outlawed.

The purple dots represent vehicle occupants—not necessarily drivers—who were killed. It may look like a lot of purple, and it certainly is, but when you zoom in closer you see a lot of blue dots, for pedestrians, as well as an awful lot of yellow dots, for motorcyclists.

The green dots for bicyclists are fewer and farther between, but if you zoom into the cities, you'll find them. Each dot even lists the year of the crash and the victim's age and gender.

ITO World got their fatality data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It appears they've captured not just fatalities on highways but on local streets as well.

The World Health Organization reports 12.3 annual traffic deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in the United States. Compare that with 3.85 in Japan and 4.5 in Germany. If the U.S. achieved similar rates, more than 20,000 deaths would be prevented each year.

This map is a useful way of visualizing the terrible consequences of our auto-addicted culture. Beyond that, it can be an indispensable tool for community transportation advocates to show local officials where problem spots are and how their community compares to others.

In an ideal world, I would not raise the gas tax this year or next year. Come out of this recession, but put in place increases that are going to occur over the next 10 years; have that revenue stream. I would borrow against the revenue stream to take advantage of record low interest rates and a bidding climate like we've never seen, fund the president's infrastructure bank to help move some of these forward, and work toward replacing the gas tax.

Bill Millar, the outgoing president of the American Public Transit Association ("on Halloween, I turn into a pumpkin!"), said that before switching to a VMT fee, Congress needs to eliminate the federal guarantee, called "equity bonus," that states will get back at least a certain percentage of what they pay in gas tax receipts. (The GAO recently found that every state actually gets back more than it puts in, thanks to infusions from the general fund, but that hasn't stopped a lot of states from complaining that they don't get their fair share.)

"States that encourage more travel get more money back [under the equity bonus system]," Millar said, "so we've got to break that cycle too, to make sure instead it's an inverse relationship and states that give people more choice, more ways to travel, get more federal aid, not less federal aid."

Millar thinks the answer is simply to raise the gas tax. And he doesn't agree that it needs to wait. After all, the average price of gas in America went up by seven cents this week, he noted. But did anybody notice? "If you told Americans that, they wouldn't like it, but hey, it's gas, what can you do?" he said.

Either way, the U.S. has got to do something to avoid running up the deficit. Congress can continue to run up an infrastructure deficit, Blumenauer said, which will cost far more in the long run. Or the country can keep spending even the meager amount it does now on transportation maintenance and the Highway Trust Fund will run dry, requiring another general fund transfer, which adds to the deficit.

Why can't Congress move forward on any path out of the current fix? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been pretty open with his frustration lately. "The last election elected about 70+ new members of the House," he said at Rail~Volution. "About 30 or 40 of those people came here to do nothing. And that's what they've done."

Blumenauer noted that his first public event in Congress was a bipartisan press conference with LaHood, then a representative from Illinois. They had called for civility in Washington.

"In the days when I served with Earl and others, there was a good mix of policy and politics," LaHood said. "Unfortunately, today, the policy part has dropped off and it's all politics. It's all about the next election."

He fumbled his call to action, though. "Everyone in this room has a member of Congress; everyone has two senators," he said—momentarily forgetting, I guess, that he was talking to hundreds of people in Washington, DC, where 600,000 residents have neither.

Just the day before, Mayor Vincent Gray had buttered up the Rail~Volution audience by talking about the Dulles rail extension and streetcars, and ended by asking the audience to push for democracy for DC so that residents there can be represented like everyone else as Congress debates the issues of the day.

For example, the jobs bill: That's what LaHood wanted everyone to call up their members of Congress about. Or passing a "five-year" [sic] transportation bill.

Bill Millar reminded the audience that transit activism isn't just about those big federal-level initiatives that get caught in big federal-level partisan gridlock. Eight cities and towns will vote on transit-related ballot initiatives in November. Millar noted that on the very same day last November when the American people voted in a new class of self-styled fiscal hawks, they also voted nearly three-to-one in favor of pro-transit measures—even when they involved taxation.

"You can't rest when you get home!" Millar exhorted Rail~Volution attendees.

They gave him a standing ovation.

The extension will stick to current funding levels, authorizing $24.78 billion in spending from the Highway Trust Fund for the first half of FY2012 (which begins October 1). That's almost $19.8 billion for highways and $4.2 billion for transit.

That's far more than the FY2012 budget just passed by the Transportation and HUD Appropriations subcommittee in the House, which agreed to $27.7 billion for highways and $5.2 billion for transit for the entire year. Although this extension can authorize more spending than that, actual spending levels are up to the appropriators. Experts say that at this level, most of the money would go to pay states back for projects already built, and new highway project funding could be cut by as much as 75 percent.

But higher spending levels also have their down side. "Maintaining current highway and transit spending levels for any period of time deepens the Highway Trust Fund's revenue hole," writes Jeff Davis, noting that according to the CBO, "the Highway Account of the Trust Fund will run out of cash at these spending levels in the first few months of calendar year 2013, with the Mass Transit Account running dry a year or so behind that)."

Rail advocates: House bill would kill Amtrak

The 2012 transportation budget passed by a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee yesterday cut all high-speed rail funding and slashes Amtrak's operating grant by 60 percent. What's more, it forbids Amtrak from using that money to fund short corridors.

Ridership on those short corridors grew five percent in the last year (PDF). Twenty-seven train lines, including several in and out of Chicago, would suddenly see their federal funding disappear, if the House budget were to become law. That would only leave the Northeast Corridor and a handful of cross-country routes; half Amtrak's ridership would be cut instantly.

According to the National Association of Railroad Passengers, a rail advocacy group, the danger goes further than just the short corridors. The organization asserts that "the bill really would kill all of Amtrak because loss of the short corridors would cut revenues and balloon costs for Northeast Corridor and national network (overnight) trains… Overhead costs—such as for station facilities and maintenance back shops—which now are shared among routes would be dumped on the surviving trains. For example, the Texas Eagle would become the sole user of the St. Louis and Fort Worth terminals and six Illinois stations. And Amtrak's Chicago terminal costs would be borne solely by eight overnight trains."

Read more »

Good news and bad news: Obama's plan would work, but GOP won't pass it

[Friday] morning brought some useful indicators about the outlook for President Obama's jobs bill. Good news first: Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, says President Obama's job creation plan will likely add 1.9 million jobs, cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point, and grow the economy by 2 percent.

The plan includes $50 billion for infrastructure, with an emphasis on transportation and schools, and the creation of an infrastructure bank capitalized at $10 billion. ...

Despite Moody's upbeat analysis of the president's proposal, stocks tumbled [Friday] morning. According to Bloomberg, the gloom wasn't about the merits of the plan but the likelihood of Congressional passage. "Even as President Obama made an effort to put that plan together," said James Dunigan, chief investment officer in Philadelphia for PNC Wealth Manage­ment, "there's not a whole lot of confidence that Congress will pass [it]."

Read more »

The weekend's debt deal trades a $900 billion raise in the debt ceiling (accomplished in two stages) for $917 billion over the next decade in discretionary spending cuts—reducing domestic discretionary spending to the lowest levels since Eisenhower was president—and including $350 billion in defense cuts—the first defense cuts since the 1990s.

Later this year, the debt ceiling will be raised by another $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion, depending on the deficit reduction recommended by a special new bi-partisan, bi-cameral committee and agreed to by Congress. Alternately, if Congress passes a balanced-budget amendment (the preference of many Republicans), that would satisfy the conditions for raising the debt ceiling.

In the absence of such an amendment, if committee members can't come to an agreement, or Congress fails to pass their recommendations, across-the-board cuts will automatically be implemented, cutting equally from defense and non-defense spending. Medicare, social security, and some other social safety net programs would be exempted.

After seeing discretionary spending cut time after time with no sacrifices demanded of the defense sector, it's remarkable that social programs, not defense, were the ones shielded from the painful cuts. Meanwhile, by spreading cuts around to a greater number of agencies, including massive spenders like the Pentagon, each affected agency is affected less.

Still, infrastructure spending is vulnerable. The White House fact sheet on the debt deal, in the section about the automatic cuts triggered by a failure to act on the committee's recommendations, says:

If the fiscal committee took no action, the deal would automatically add nearly $500 billion in defense cuts on top of cuts already made, and, at the same time, it would cut critical programs like infrastructure or education. That outcome would be unacceptable to many Republicans and Democrats alike—creating pressure for a bipartisan agreement without requiring the threat of a default with unthinkable consequences for our economy.

Under the normal spending cuts regime (not the nuclear option of the automatic, across-the-board cuts) the Department of Transportation is grouped with all other discretionary spending for cuts. The Highway Trust Fund is not discretionary, since it has its own funding source.

I asked Senate staffers if any of this will make it harder for the Finance and EPW Committees to justify spending $12 billion more than trust fund receipts, as spelled out in the Senate transportation bill—even if that $12 billion comes from another budget item and doesn't add to the deficit. No response yet.

Another Senate staffer says that while there are not cuts specific to transportation, the cuts will be "pretty devastating to every discretionary program."

In addition to spending cuts and the possibility of tax reform in the committee recommendations, the expiration in early 2013 of the Bush tax cuts on the rich also ensures some deficit reduction. If more savings aren't found, the president says he will veto an extension of those tax cuts. The White House estimates that would generate nearly $1 trillion; other estimates have put the added revenue closer to $700 billion over ten years.

In his sales pitch to House Republicans [PDF], Speaker John Boehner is trumpeting his victory in keeping tax increases at bay—and indeed, for now, President Obama's proposals to close loopholes on the oil industry and corporate jets are not in the bill. But the 12-member fiscal committee is tasked with finding deficit reductions in both cuts and revenues—teeing up another Congressional brawl over taxes later this year.

The more information that came out, the more outrageous the charges against Nelson became. From an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story that came out the month after the incident:

On April 10, she and her three children—Tyler, 9, A.J., 4, and Lauryn, 3—went shopping because the next day was Nelson's birthday. They had pizza, went to Wal-Mart and missed a bus, putting them an hour late getting home. Nelson, a student at Kennesaw State University, said she never expected to be out after dark, especially with the children.

When the Cobb County Transit bus finally stopped directly across from Somerpoint Apartments, night had fallen. She and the children crossed two lanes and waited with other passengers on the raised median for a break in traffic. The nearest crosswalks were three-tenths of a mile in either direction, and Nelson wanted to get her children inside as soon as possible. A.J. carried a plastic bag holding a goldfish they'd purchased.

"One girl ran across the street," Nelson said. "For some odd reason, I guess he saw the girl and decided to run out behind her. I said, 'Stop, A.J.,' and he was in the middle of the street so I said keep going. That's when we all got hit."

And as Radley Balko wrote in the Huffington Post, the odds were stacked against Nelson from the start.

"During jury questioning, none of the jurors who would eventually convict Nelson raised their hands when asked if they relied on public transportation," Balko wrote. "Just one juror admitted to ever having ridden a public bus, though in response to a subsequent question, a few said they'd taken a bus to Braves games."

Indeed, as David Goldberg wrote on T4America's campaign blog, "Nelson, 30 and African-American, was convicted on the charge this week by six jurors who were not her peers. All were middle-class whites" and did not ride public transit. "In other words, none had ever been in Nelson's shoes."

Many have asked if there's any way to help. Some expressed a desire to contribute to Nelson's legal fund. Others wanted to know if they could write a letter to someone demanding that Nelson's charges be expunged.

I've left two messages over the past week with Nelson's lawyer asking these (and other) questions. Neither message has been returned. So I can't answer your questions about a legal defense fund. Nelson's sentencing hearing is on Tuesday.

But there are now two petitions circulating. One, circulating at the Care2 petition site, asks the governor to overturn Nelson's verdict. At the moment I'm writing this, the petition has gathered 4,369 signatures, on the way to its goal of 10,000.

Another, which currently has 1,061 signatures at Change.org, asks not only for Nelson's release but for the installation of a crosswalk. That petition is addressed to the Cobb County Transportation Department, Cobb County Commissioner District 1 (Helen Goreham), and the Solicitor General (Barry Morgan).

We'll stay tuned for news on Nelson's sentence on Tuesday.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

The outline confirms that the Senate is working on a two-year bill but does not include the dollar amount. "Consolidation" is the name of the game these days and the Senate plays along, making seven core surface transportation programs into five, including a new Transportation Mobility Program, which "sub-allocates" some funds to metropolitan areas, and a National Freight Program, which proponents of multi-modalism have long pushed for.

It preserves the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, which funds some bike and pedestrian programs. Transportation Enhancements, another major way such programs are funded, will probably now be under CMAQ. It's unclear whether the Recreational Trails Program will move to CMAQ as well.

But although bike and pedestrian projects will still be eligible for funding, there appear to be no explicit funding guarantees for bike-ped projects, and how funding levels will shake out in the final analysis is anybody's guess.

Like the House, the Senate bill offers states "the flexibility to fund these activities as they see fit"—which amounts to a revocation of the federal commitment to funding this work. Many states, absent a federal mandate, will spend virtually nothing on bike/ped infrastructure.

Bicycling advocates had asked for dedicated funding that doesn't pit them against road projects, the same funding proportion as they had in SAFETEA-LU, and changes to Safe Routes to School. None of those features appear to be in this bill.

"It's hard to know without seeing the details, but at first blush it doesn't look good for bike and pedestrian issues," said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. "Perhaps it's to be expected that there's nothing upfront in the language about protecting dedicated funding, given that it was a topic of some contention among the protagonists. But it's pretty troubling to see no reference to any of the issues that affect cyclists and pedestrians—nothing about complete streets, nothing about dedicated funding."

The Senate bill expands and modifies the TIFIA loan program, as does the House bill, and does not mention an infrastructure bank. Boxer indicated in the fall that she was more friendly to an expansion of TIFIA than to a new entity, though more recently she has said that she supported the inclusion of an infrastructure bank in the bill.

On performance outcomes, the outline says:

MAP-21 focuses the highway program on key outcomes, such as reducing fatalities, improving bridges, fixing roads, and reducing congestion, in order to ensure that taxpayers are receiving the most for their money. States will set their own targets for improving safety, road and bridge condition, congestion, and freight movement.

"Improving bridges" and "fixing roads" don't really sound like performance outcomes, and bicycling advocates fear that, while safety is an essential goal, the fact that there are about 60 times more car fatalities per year than bike fatalities will translate into a far greater focus on car safety than bicycle safety.

By contrast, the Bipartisan Policy Center has suggested setting national transportation goals such as economic growth, metropolitan accessibility, energy security and environmental protection.

The bill does seek to improve state and metro planning processes "to incorporate a more comprehensive performance-based approach to decision making."

The Banking Committee has not yet inserted its transit language, nor has the Commerce Committee come forward with its rail language, so this outline doesn't say anything about those elements.

We understand that the full bill has not even been circulated to Democratic committee members yet, indicating that, despite the false hopes of last week, a formal bill introduction is not yet on the horizon. The committee is holding a hearing this Thursday on "issues" for the reauthorization.

Boxer has promised to hold a hearing before marking up the bill, but the bill would have to be introduced a week in advance if the hearing were going to discuss actual bill text, and there is no longer time for that if the committee is going to mark up the bill before the August recess. So Thursday's hearing will likely be a more general discussion of transportation issues, using this brief outline as a guide.

Cross-postd at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

Why a six-year bill

At yesterday's press event to roll out the bill, Mica and other House members explained their commitment to a six-year bill, in contrast to the Senate proposal of a two-year bill.

"We want long term bill," Mica said. "We heard across the country that our state secretaries of transportation want some stability."

Richard Hanna, the vice chair of the Highways and Transit subcommittee, contended that the stimulus failed to boost employment significantly because "shovel-ready," short-term projects don't create many jobs.

"By passing a six-year transportation bill, this committee will provide the states and transportation agencies with an established stream of federal funding that will allow them to take on major projects," said Hanna. "Given this predictability, states will be more comfortable taking on bridge replacement, highway interchange improvements, etc. These are projects that provide jobs for two or three years, not two or three months."

Without the assurance of a long-term bill, Hanna said, "states will continue to put off major construction projects."

"The two year plan is a recipe for bankruptcy of the trust fund and also a closedown of long term projects across the country," said Mica. "And if you don't believe that, look what's happened. We're under a two-year extension right now, which expires in September. That'll be two years. And look what it's given us! Not much."

Even advocates of a short bill agree that a longer one is ideal, as it allows for planning, but they say transportation agencies can't plan major projects with the tiny trickle of federal funding the House bill would let flow to the states, either. Some state DOT heads say they'd rather have adequate funding for two years than meager funding for six.

Rules and funding constraints

Mica made it clear that while he's also disappointed the funding levels are so low, he's hampered by the political climate of fiscal conservatism in the House and, more specifically, by House Rule XXI, which includes a "pay-as-you-go" provision that Mica takes as a prohibition on spending more than the Highway Trust Fund takes in.

"I wish I could jump over the moon," Mica said, "but I can't do that either."

He said several times that he and other committee members would be appearing before the Ways and Means Committee, which makes decisions about how to fund programs, to appeal for help. He wasn't very specific about what they'd ask for, though he did mention some bonding and tax credits for private companies investing in infrastructure. He wouldn't say that he would push for any kind of increased user fee, whether a gas tax hike or a VMT charge.

"We've tried to look at every dollar of revenue that's coming in and how we can maximize it," Mica said, explaining that by consolidating programs, encouraging private investment and streamlining the review process, he thinks they can "do more with less."

They're eliminating 70 programs out of the "mind-boggling" list of federal transportation programs and "devolving to the states the ability to approve" programs. Federal mandates for certain programs (including bike, pedestrian, and other livability programs) will be eliminated, but states will maintain the "flexibility" to spend money on those things. Unfortunately, if history is any guide, many states end up under-spending on these alternative transportation programs, even disproportionately sending bike/ped money back to Washington when called upon to rescind funds from their budgets.

Mica said there will be more money available (despite the smaller size of the bill) for all of those programs because it cuts federal overhead costs and eliminates the need for state and local officials to "hightail it to Washington to talk to some bureaucrat in one of the agencies."

Focus on highways

"The focus of the bill is on the national highway system," Mica said, in answer to a question about the elimination of funding for walkability. "We can't fund every local project."

"We're trying to make certain that our federal responsibility is met first, and that's our interstates and our major infrastructure projects."

He then used the opportunity to boast that the bill has no earmarks, reducing the amount spent on frivolous "pet" projects, and that there are no "special set-asides"—Republican code for things like multi-use trails.

Republicans say their plan would keep the Highway Trust Fund afloat, whereas Democrats' plans would drive it into the red.

The bill doesn't have any dollar amounts attached to specific programs but Rep. Bill Shuster said that it doesn't have anything specifically for high-speed rail. Still, he promised that the plan would improve upon the high-speed rail program, which he accused the Obama administration of "mishandling."

"We're going to fix it in this bill," Shuster said, "requiring that projects are truly high-speed—and the definition of high-speed will not be 110 mph; it will be 125 mph." He also pledged greater transparency.

They're cutting Amtrak's funding by 25 percent and placing limits on what the funding can be used for. For example, Shuster said, it couldn't be "squandered" on lawsuits like one that Amtrak is involved in now.

The plan also calls for improvements to the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing Program, which is funded at $35 billion but has only managed to spend about $1 billion in the last 13 years.

No competition but private competition for transit

Mica is one Republican who has long been a fan of rail and mass transit. At yesterday's event he said, "When you see the price of one car on the road, and new highway construction through metropolitan areas or even rural areas, you become an advocate of transportation alternatives."

Still, that support hasn't translated into any breaks for transit in this bill. Even with transit's share of the overall pie staying the same, the reduced overall funding levels would mean a cut from about $11 billion for transit today to about $7 billion.

On the positive side, the proposal would "streamline" the New Starts and Small Starts program for transit, "cutting project development time in half," according to the plan. Indeed, project development times are slated, under this plan, to go from 15 years to six by making federal reviews happen at the same times, instead of each waiting for another to end.

But overall there's a lot of bad news for transit in this bill. The transit section also encourages private companies to provide public transportation services. House Republicans like what they see in the success of privately run intercity buses and want to see vanpools compete with city buses in urban areas, in addition to more private participation in rail transit. Some critics of private participation at this level worry that private operators will take over the lucrative routes, leaving the slower routes for public agencies to run (and lose money on).

The plan would also repeal discretionary transit programs that the Republicans say are "unpredictable and not transparent," returning instead to strict formula funding. This move flies in the face of repeated and growing demands for increased performance measures, which would often use discretionary funds as a "carrot" to encourage cost-effective programs that meet national transportation goals.

Indeed, the House bill is notable in its rejection of performance measures and competitive programs like TIGER and the Sustainable Communities grants instituted by the Obama administration. Committee staffer Jim Tymon had to field Streetsblog's question on performance measures when Mica couldn't answer it, but Tymon's response was vague.

He said that performance measures would be developed in conert with USDOT and state DOTs. He said that while states will have increased flexibility for how they spend their money, they will be held accountable for how they meet performance standards. If they don't meet those standards, he said, they will be made to spend money in the areas where they are underperforming.

An unlikely ally

While responses continue to roll in from advocacy groups and lawmakers alarmed by the funding cuts, several notable people called in to Mica's press event to thank him for the new proposal. One of them was L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a champion of transit investment. He thanked Mica for "listening to the 113 mayors who have gotten behind the expansion of TIFIA."

"Your proposal to raise the budget authority of TIFIA to a billion dollars goes beyond even what many of us had talked about early on," Villaraigosa said, "and we think it's exactly where it needs to be."

That's a useful high-profile endorsement for Mica from a pro-transit Democrat. Still, it's unlikely the mayor will support Mica's plan over Boxer's, which also includes America Fast Forward, another plan supported by Villaraigosa to increase federal leveraging of private funds.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

Two days before Earth Day, however, McDonnell had announced more than 900 projects that would be funded by his transportation plan, which he calls "the most significant investment in the Commonwealth's transportation system in a generation." The plan would spend $3 billion to "not only address the needs of the aging highway system upon which we all depend" but also "provide a needed injection of funding into our economy to spur recovery from the difficult recession of the past several years," according to McDonnell.

Experts are still analyzing the numbers that came out last week, which are exceptionally confusing. For instance, the first slide of a VDOT powerpoint presentation Streetsblog obtained shows that $8.1 billion will go to highway construction with $2.3 billion for rail and public transportation—a similar split to what transit gets from the federal government. But those numbers only include construction, not operations and maintenance, and clearly they add up to much more than the $3 billion investment that's the centerpiece of McDonnell's transportation plan. Reformers caution that a closer look at the numbers proves that transit isn't getting a good deal.

Indeed, in its announcement of the 900 recipient projects, the state DOT highlighted 14 flagship projects that would be funded—all road projects, most of them involving roadway widening. There are also several replacements of aging bridges. In a separate list, the press release lists several rail and transit projects, though it doesn't give a dollar amount dedicated to transit.

"State law requires that at least 14.7 percent of the [Transportation Trust Fund] go to transit," said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. "I would be quite surprised if the total six-year plan surpasses this share."

Throughout the development of the transportation plan, McDonnell's rhetoric has been almost exclusively about roads, and when the final numbers are crunched, many expect that the dollar allocation will show the same bias.

If the governor wants people to stop driving alone, this is probably not the plan he should be putting forth, said Schwartz. "Given the energy crisis that our nation faces and our oil dependency," he said, "we could be doing much more to invest in transit, local streets, and pedestrian and bicycle and carpooling needs than his plan calls for." Schwartz went on to say:

What are we buying with this money? The governor has never talked about the maintenance backlog in the state. This is all capital expenditures—it's not maintenance. So how are we going to meet the backlog of $3.7 billion in structurally deficient bridges; what's the plan? What about the billion in structurally deficient pavement—or more? That's never been discussed.

So, if we're using scarce transportation revenues we'd like to see us first address the maintenance needs of roads, bridges and transit. Certainly we could make up for the operating shortfalls transit is facing so desperately right now. After that, we'd like to see that we're supporting a more energy efficient future for Virginia and investing in energy efficient transportation and land use solutions.

That would argue not just for spending on transit, but really for a transportation system that would support smart growth outcomes such as revitalization of the cities, development near transit stations, revitalization in all of our suburban communities and commercial corridors, more compact and walkable, bikable land uses with good transit.

That does not appear to be the vision Gov. McDonnell has laid out.

Kala Quintana of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, also still combing through the numbers, said the governor's expressed support for transit has been heartening. "There seems to be an acknowledgement that, hey, there are alternatives out there, and we want to encourage people to use them," Quintana said. "This is not news to us, but we think it's great that it's coming from the governor's office, that he's trying to encourage people to seek out alternative forms of transportation."

But she wants to see a greater commitment from the governor to actually funding transit. Already, public transportation systems in Northern Virginia are at capacity, she said, and the only thing stopping them from adding more is that there hasn't been enough money allocated to buy more buses and pay more drivers.

While details of the plan are still coming out, what we do know is how it's funded. The debt the governor is planning to incur for the commonwealth of Virginia is by far the most controversial part of the plan. Of the $3 billion, $1.8 billion comes from 10-year loans approved by Governor Tim Kaine in 2007, which Gov. McDonnell is extending for 25 years—"even though it costs over 40 percent more to carry debt for 25 years than it does for 10 years," as Democratic Virginia House Delegate Vivian Watts wrote in the Washington Post. Another $1.2 billion is borrowed from expected future income from the federal government. McDonnell also wanted to create a state infrastructure bank but the legislature dramatically scaled back those plans.

Last spring, the McDonnell administration did an audit of transportation funds and found that Gov. Tim Kaine had significant unspent balances. Rather than praising Kaine's fiscal discipline or keeping some of that money for what it was meant for—hedging against the possibility that the federal government would continue to fail to pass a transportation reauthorization, or that it would be lower than expected—or holding onto the money for future maintenance needs, McDonnell treated the discovery as a treasure trove for plundering. The media happily went along with that version of the story.

But many transportation advocates criticize the governor for going so deep into debt for transportation investments that may prove to amount to little more than road widening. David Alpert wrote, "Borrowing in this way, of course, essentially means spending future decades' transportation money. From McDonnell's point of view, why not? He won't be governor. The easiest way to get credit for starting a lot of projects when he has no money is to spend future governors' money."

This Silver Line isn't being built to get me from the inner city to our ridiculously far-flung airport. It's to provide all the benefits of transit—a reliable, congestion-free ride to work while you read the paper or doze off to your iTunes—to people who have chosen to live several counties away from their work.

Land use expert Reid Ewing, a professor of urban planning at the University of Utah and associate editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association, said transit leads to development—both sprawling and compact—because it improves accessibility. And increased accessibility to jobs in a shorter amount of time is an engine for development.

"It's the fact that you can reach lots of trip attractions within short period of time on transit that causes development around the station," Ewing said. "It doesn't happen inherently. And accessibility, likewise, is a driving force in highway oriented sprawl."

Different modes create development in different ways. Even different rail modes, Ewing said, have different potential to induce development. Light rail tends to go slower than heavy rail, and so light rail connectivity far out in the suburbs won't be as much of a boon to a community as a faster line. So it won't attract as many new residents to the area, whether people living in a tight circle around the station and walking to transit, or people living more spread out and driving there.

"With highway expansion you really don't get much concentration of activity because the automobile is so flexible—it can go anywhere and it moves at fairly high speeds," Ewing said. "The catchment area for a high performance highway is many miles. And that catchment area is likely to be developed in a sprawling pattern, because it's auto-oriented. In the case of rail expansion, there's at least potential to have concentrated transit oriented development around the station, then potentially sprawl feeding the station through park-and-ride."

That's why well-planned station area development so key. It doesn't just make for nice, semi-urban enclaves—it channels outward development along compact corridors, says APTA President Bill Millar.

"We have a long, long history in the country of building compact towns around railroad stations," Millar said. "We know that the value of land goes up around stations and intensity of development goes up around stations and that's anti-sprawl."

Besides, transit lines typically have to go through a cost-benefit analysis to acquire federal and state funding, and they need to demonstrate a certain level of projected ridership. "That is one reason why you don't have trains to nowhere the way sometimes you have other things to nowhere," said Sarah Kline of Reconnecting America.

Transit is generally built in response to outward development, in other words—it doesn't cause it.

"It's not like roads or highways that were built before these places really grew up," Kline said. "The road gets built and then the suburb grows up and then all of a sudden no one can get into downtown anymore because it's so congested, so they build transit. And yes, transit allows people to still live there. But what would happen if there weren't transit? People wouldn't all be moving in closer because there's not enough affordable housing closer in."

Chris Leinberger of Brookings and the University of Michigan writes extensively on the increasing demand for compact urban development. He says the lack of affordable inner-city housing Kline refers to is the product of the failure of real estate developers to adequately fill the enormous demand for compact, walkable neighborhoods. The high prices in the urban core signal the high demand in densely developed areas, according to Leinberger.

Does that mean even transit-oriented development on the fringe can be to the detriment of the city itself? The surging desire for walkability can be sated by little suburban downtowns dotted around the periphery instead of by the urban core, building up the suburbs at the expense of downtown. Here in D.C. for example: a person craving urbanism could go to Tysons or Reston or Rockville and contribute to the starvation of Washington, DC itself.

The city's census numbers showed a rise in population this year for the first time since 1950, but we still only have 75 percent of the population we had then. On the other hand, by relieving some of the pressure for compact neighborhoods, densely-built communities outside the city can have the effect of making housing more affordable inside the city.

Bill Millar says yes, transit lines stretch farther and farther out into the countryside, but it at least concentrates the development that's occurring there anyway, and makes it more efficient. "Transit makes development more dense, more environmentally friendly, and increases the probability people will use car less," he said.

But it can still be done wrong. Portland-area Congressman Earl Blumenauer said transit-oriented development can create walkable, livable communities, but "building nothing but a park-n-ride outside the station will create sprawl."

Every transit line has some stations that fail this test—stations that are anchored in an ocean of parking, with no other services nearby. If there are no residential or commercial opportunities within walking distance of the station, no one will ever walk there. In these cases, transit is an engine for auto-oriented sprawl.

Back to the Silver Line: Four of those 11 new stations will be in and around Tysons Corner, which has embarked on a land use plan to redevelop the sprawling, auto-oriented shopping destination suburb into a walkable urban center. The placement of transit stations there fits well with their plan to increase density and pedestrian-friendliness, and even without that plan, Tysons' population justifies a transit line.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.