Transportation

LA Mayor Villaraigosa Discusses America Fast Forward At Jobs Summit

Dave Johnson — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:02:18 -0500

Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles, talked today at the Summit On Jobs & America's Future in Washington D.C. Villaraigosa described the bipartisan America Fast Forward initiative from the National Conference of Mayors. The America Fast Forward initiative is based on Villaraigosa’s 30/10 initiative for public transportation construction projects in Los Angeles. According to the LA Daily News,

America Fast Forward includes increasing annual funding for the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act; increasing the maximum percentage of the funding allotment that the act can finance; permitting the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve multiple related projects at the same time; allowing the department to grant up-front credits to projects and authorizing the department to lock in interest rates for approved projects.

Villaraigosa said the plan would generate $158 billion in total economic output focused in the construction and technical industries while generating $10.6 billion in new federal tax revenue and another $5.8 billion in state tax revenue.

America Fast Forward is supported by U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and more than 60 mayors.

Villaraigosa said, (from notes),

"Let me share a story, my grandpa got here 100 years ago. People ask me when I got here, where are you from. I’m from here, my parents are from here…

He had 2nd grade education, picked fruit, lost all his money i8n depression, his wife left him with 2 daughters. This is the greatest generation that we hear people talk about. They went through the depression, war against fascism, made sacrifices, gave us our standard of living, our consumer society, the strong middle class that makes the economy do better and makes people thrive, brought us best institutions of higher learning and the best highways that are the envy of world, our public education system. How did we thank them? California's Prop. 13 capped our property taxes but not our kids, we got into two wars. What we have always done is when we are in a war, we sacrifice, tighten our belt to pay for that war, but today we have fast-forwarded the payments to future generations, passed tax breaks for wealthy. We didn’t pay for them. The list goes on.

In that context, our cities, counties, states have to make tough decisions. I had to lay off in LA, cut 4,000 jobs out of 14,000 civilian general-fund jobs in last 2 years. But we’re living in a world where to some public jobs just don’t matter. What we’re talking about is teachers in our classrooms, cops, firefighters, librarians.

What do we do to get out of the box of just cutting, how do we exspand the pile, what to create jobs?

Accelerate investment in infrastructure. I advocated for a half-penny sales tax to invest $30 billion in infrastructure in LA, public transportation, highway repair, had the natural opposition from Republicans, even some demcorats. We got it passed with the required 2/3, to put people to work. I went for federal funds to help, federal government said no so we got localities across the country to put up $$.

Everyone in public says job-creation is number one priority. But most cranes are in China, most infrastructure investment is in China.

How do we do it in this context? Country is divided, so we are proposing a national bipartisan apprioach from Democratic and Republican mayors around country, to create a million infrastructure jobs nationwide. This is a national proposal building on LA's 30/10 plan, called America Fast Forward. It is a bond program to accelerate commitments, lock in now, includes an infrastructure bank.

It will create a million jobs, with $51 billion workers income, $150 billion total economic output, $10 billion in federal tax revenue, $5 billion in local tax revenue.

David Walker And Tom Ridge Slap The Tea Partiers

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:08:42 -0500

In a fun-house mirror world in which Tea Party mad-hatters drive the agenda of at least one house of Congress, a Politico op-ed co-authored by former Bush cabinet member Tom Ridge and Peterson Foundation budget-cutting crusader David Walker is what passes for sane commentary.

The subject is transportation funding, which should be near the top of the 2011 legislative agenda because, done correctly, the White House and Congress can in one fell swoop create hundreds of thousands of jobs within weeks; set the foundation for more efficient movement of goods and people through the economy, and lower our fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Ridge and Walker, joined by former Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley, agree, and they directly criticize the extreme budget-slashing driven by the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, which they say slashed transportation spending by 20 percent in the fiscal 2011 budget bill the House passed last month.

"We need to invest more in infrastructure. Less is the wrong way to go," they write. One way to pay for it, they go on to write, is through "higher user fees (gas taxes) and at the wellhead through higher fees on production and importation of crude oil."

The Obama administration is, in fact, proposing a significant increase in funding for highways and public transportation: $556 billion over a six-year period. That compares to the $286 billion bill President Bush signed in 2005. And President Obama has said he supports "front-loading" the spending so that it could act as a stimulus for the lackluster economy expected during the remainder of this year and 2012. While that proposal is awaiting action, Congress extended the life of the Bush funding levels for transportation through the end of the year.

But the administration has said it won't support an increase in the federal gasoline tax to pay for it, even though the gasoline tax has remained at 18.4 cents since 1993. An increase to reflect the impact of consumer price inflation would set the gasoline tax at 28 cents. In the meantime, the average price of gasoline has tripled from the average of $1.06 a gallon at the start of 1993.

But considering an increase in the gasoline tax is not the only solution, and given that one goal is to lower gasoline consumption, the nation will need other ways besides gasoline taxes to finance a fuel-efficient, 21st-century transportation infrastructure. Having a national infrastructure bank is part of the funding puzzle. Once electric cars become mainstream, a mileage-based tax will likely be in order as well.

The point is that we're not going to have infrastructure without paying for it, and We the People should insist that it be public infrastructure, not yet another item on corporate balance sheets to be manipulated to the interests of Wall Street financiers rather than in the public interest. The administration needs to help lead in building support for a robust, well-funded transportation bill in the face of a Congress that, through its budget slashing, is actually costing the economy jobs.

The irony is that it was the Ridges, Walkers and Bradleys of the world who at a minimum stood idly by as their friends at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other corporations fed the Tea Party beast that is now shredding the transportation agenda they say they want to get through Congress.

At least Walker, Ridge and Bradley are pointing in the right direction on this critical part of getting America back to work. It would be great if they would get to work talking sense to their Tea Party brethren -- and give the Obama administration a bit more backbone.

Transportation Jobs -- People Who GO To Work, Too

Dave Johnson — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:36:57 -0400

When you think about building a new mass transit system, or funding (and cuts) to operate bus and rail lines you might think about the construction, manufacturing, operating and maintenance jobs created (or cut). That's a lot of jobs, but those jobs are almost beside the point. Transit is part of the infrastructure that enables our economy, and that means things like enabling people to get to work.

Imagine New York without its infrastructure of subways, buses and rail. You have to imagine, at best, the city as it existed long ago. There might even still be a few farms! Cars would only be able to move a limited number of people along hyper-crowded roads...

So New York's entire economy rests on that transportation infrastructure. Millions of people every single day coming into the central city, filling the buildings, moving around...

Does your ability to get to your job depend on America's transit infrastructure? If it does then you should take a look at the Keep America Moving coalition:

Mass transit needs your help

A national funding crisis is bearing down on transit riders and the men and women who operate and maintain transportation systems. As the featured report from NBC News makes clear, the economic recession is devastating mass transit systems – at the same time as large numbers of unemployed and under-employed Americans need mobility to find jobs. Keep America Moving is a coalition of transit unions who believe that there must be increased aid to mass transit systems on the part of the federal government.

Even if you are comfortably enclosed in a suburban gated community far far away from the "kind of people" who need to use mass transit to get through their day, this still affects you. Do you drive a car to work? Funding cutbacks might cost you a tire or windshield from a pothole or debris on the road. How will the people who work in your local supermarkets or Starbucks get to work?

There is also the issue of maintaining our democracy to think about. Should only people with a lot of money be able to move around? America already has "pay lanes" on highways in a few areas, where people with money can pay to move into uncongested lanes during rush hour. This is a "market solution" that is in direct opposition to ideas of democracy, in which the community provides for everyone. But market solutions like this also just don't work. It might get you down the highway faster but if you want your latte, the worker also has to get to work. So you might want to think about supporting funding for transit systems.

David Edwards

David Edwards — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:15:43 -0500

David M. Edwards is an award winning director and filmmaker. Coming to the position of Director via the editing suite, he is a highly detailed individual who is adept at seeing the big picture and is skilled at shaping the vision for film projects. He started EMotion Pictures Productions, LLC in 1995 with the intention of focusing his career on documentaries and narrative feature films. Since the founding of EMotion Pictures, Dave Edwards has established himself as a respected individual among film and video professionals and is a respected member in the Denver business community.

After many years of success creating commercial and promotional media for such companies as Time Warner Telecom and US West, David decided to steer his career back to his original intentions. Sprawling From Grace; Driven To Madness is his first feature film documentary. David is currently in post-production of his second feature film documentary Justice In Uganda; Dancing Without Music, which is scheduled for completion in late 2008, and is in pre-production for his debut feature film narrative The Ship.

John Kerry works the road bicycling addled crowd.

John Benson — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:42:45 -0400

OK. I admit this is my niche, and I liked Kerry already. But this posting gave John Kerry actual credibility with roadies. Shaved legs! No way! Some of the insider talk may elude you but to put things into perspective Vaughter’s is saying that Kerry was descending at 55MPH. I don’t like that on straight roads.

Let's Bank On Rebuilding America

Isaiah J. Poole — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:48:40 -0400

Instead of a silly argument over a "gas tax holiday," we desperately need a serious discussion about the nation's infrastructure. And there is a good legislative proposal that could be the basis for that discussion.

There are bills in the House (HR 3401) and the Senate (S 1926) that would create a national infrastructure bank. It could be one way to bring some common sense to the task of rebuilding America's roads, bridges, sewers and public buildings. The creation of this bank should be part of the effort progressives are making in Congress to enact a second stimulus bill this month.

Such a bank would allow the federal government to finance these projects in the same way that states do: by issuing long-term, tax-exempt bonds or by making loan guarantees.

Both Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have said they support the idea of an infrastructure bank, although it rarely comes up in their campaign speeches. And that's a shame, because they both need to spend their time reinforcing an emerging national mandate for repairing and improving our crumbling foundations.

Just last month, the blog Infrastructure Watch notes, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the nation's total water infrastructure needs would cost between $485 billion to $1.2 trillion. However, funding for the largest federal drinking water and wastewater infrastructure programs have been flat or declining.

Also, the Congressional Budget Office told Congress last year that the Highway Trust Fund, which is made up largely of the revenue from the gasoline tax, will run out of money in 2009. Spending is outpacing money flowing into the fund. (High gasoline prices, in fact, worsens that problem. When high prices force cutbacks in driving, less money flows into the fund; the federal gasoline tax is a per-gallon tax; it does not increase proportionately to the cost of a gallon of gasoline.) One key reason for the exhaustion of the fund is that prices for materials such as asphalt and concrete are exceeding the general rate of inflation.

In March, the president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, David G. Mongan, reminded the House Banking Committee that in 2005 the organization gave a grade of "D" to the state of the nation's infrastructure and said that an investment of $1.6 trillion by 2010 would be needed to bring the fix these public resources. At the time, that bad grade got a fair amount of attention. Since then:

Nothing approaching that level of investment has been made. Indeed, little has changed in the three years since we handed out that dismal grade, and establishing a longterm plan to finance the development and maintenance of our infrastructure remains a pressing national priority.

This nation continues to under-invest in infrastructure at the national level. The total of all federal spending for infrastructure as a share of all federal spending has steadily declined over the last 30 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

One of the more shameful examples of what Robert Kuttner adroitly calls "the squandering of America" is the failure of America to take care of its basic public assets, especially after the Bush administration inherited a government with a budget surplus that gave it the leeway to tackle that challenge intelligently. (Colleague Bill Scher has linked to some NBC News reports on how we're literally falling apart and is asking why the media, including NBC, isn't doing more to press this into the national debate.) Under the guise of controlling spending, the administration has shifted an increasing share of the national burden to state and local governments—where the same conservatives who say the federal government shouldn't tax to pay for these needs make the same argument at the state and local level—or encouraged turning public assets into private profit centers.

Now that the country is moving through a recession, there is an even more critical need to target government resources on projects that will produce jobs in the short run and leave the nation in the long run with the clean water, transportation, schools and other public facilities that a nation needs to be healthy and economically vibrant. As Congress considers a second economic stimulus package for short-term relief this month, it should authorize the creation of that infrastructure bank. Then let's have a serious debate about how to fund it and how to use it when the next president takes office.

The Age of Infrastructure

Harry Moroz — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:47:00 -0500

Perhaps because national infrastructure is so amenable to physiological comparison – highways are the nation’s bloodstream, its sewage systems the digestive tract, its bridges synapses – it is also subject, at least in journalistic cliché, to one of life’s few inevitabilities: aging.

Much of the evidence for this “infrastructural maturity” results from a 2005 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) that gave America’s infrastructure an average of a D on its Infrastructure Report Card. Grades ranged from a D- for drinking water systems (there is a wide funding gap for improvements, particularly in urban centers) and navigable waterways (half the nation’s locks are functionally obsolete) to a relief-inspiring C+ for solid waste (the number of landfills has declined, but mammoth regional fills have replaced them). The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) outlined similar concerns in its 2006 “Guiding Principles for Strengthening America’s Infrastructure”: aviation traffic will grow 39% by 2016, freight tonnage will increase 50% by 2020, and severe highway bottlenecks have already increased 40% in the last five years, but the structures that support these systems are deteriorating. 13,000 fatalities result each year from inadequate maintenance of highways, $63.2 billion are lost to traffic on the roadways, and $9 billion are lost to aviation delays.

Despite the ASCE’s empirical evidence and our intuitive sense (when was the last time you sat bumper-to-bumper with an SUV or stood jowl-to-jowl with someone in the subway) that infrastructure is aging and inadequate, no large-scale effort has been undertaken to confront the problem in a comprehensive and purposeful manner. Even after a bridge collapsed in Minnesota , a steam pipe burst in New York City, and levees broke in New Orleans, attempts to mend our bridges, highways, and waterways still stall because of bureaucratic strife and ineffective funding.

What often hinders large-scale infrastructure projects is not the knowledge that such projects are necessary or the lack of technical skill to carry them out. Rather, when politicians and government agencies tackle endeavors of such proportions, priorities clash, funding streams are challenged, and reputations are put on the line (For an international example, see Chile’s Transantiago bus service. Transantiago was designed to be self-financing, but is now expected to cost $40 million a month.). This means that massive construction plans become as much about individual personalities and personal ambition as about concrete, steel girders, and getting a car across the Hudson River. As Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution remarked at a congressional hearing on ground transportation, “The sad fact is that now that the Interstate Highway System is completed there is no coherent national vision for addressing a complex and conflicting set of transportation challenges. As a result, America’s transportation policy is adrift with no clear goals, purpose, or ability to meet these challenges.”

A unique solution to the bureaucratic and financial problems that often beset large-scale infrastructure projects has been proposed by Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel. On the morning of the Minnesota bridge collapse, as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert pointed out, the senators announced their sponsorship of legislation to create a National Infrastructure Bank. The Bank would issue bonds to raise funds for infrastructure projects that would be selected based on a strict set of criteria. Applications would be accepted only for projects that cost at least $75 million, have a public sponsor (a state or local government), and are of regional or national significance. The Bank would then rate each application based on its promotion of economic growth, its mobility improvements, its reduction of poverty concentration, its environmental benefits, its potential to promote smart urban growth, and its regional or national significance (the criteria vary slightly for each type of infrastructure project).

The National Infrastructure Bank is a first step in creating a coherent vision of American infrastructure. First, the use of bonds – rather than a pay-as-you-go system that relies on yearly revenues – allows the federal government to develop a stable, long-term strategy for economic growth based on infrastructure improvements. Such a financing stream is less subject to political whims and to revenues, which fluctuate with the economy and with legislative action (and inaction). Second, federal funding for infrastructure – in particular, for the transportation system – is often diverted by state governments to other (sometimes) worthy, yet non-infrastructure, projects. Puentes of Brookings points out that the Government Accountability Office has called the federal transportation fund a “cash transfer, general purpose grant program,” and that “the U.S. code neuters the federal role and states specifically that the appropriation of highway funds ‘shall in no way infringe on the sovereign rights of the States to determine which projects shall be federally financed.’” The National Infrastructure Bank would ensure that federal funds are used by state and local governments for specific infrastructure projects, rather than diverted to make up for, say, underfunded federal mandates.

Perhaps most importantly, the selection criteria required by the National Infrastructure Bank would encourage the federal government to undertake projects that are significant to the country’s long-term well-being: rather than stop-gap measures to repair existing problems, such projects would take into account new challenges like climate change, the growing importance of urban areas, and the need for more affordable housing, while at the same time confronting the more typical concerns associated with economic growth (increased air, highway, and port traffic). A database with details about each infrastructure project and its funding would provide at least some public oversight.

Interestingly, political support for an infrastructure bank is growing. The day after Senators Dodd and Hagel announced their plan – and the day after the Minnesota bridge collapse – Senator Hillary Clinton signed onto the bill as a co-sponsor. A week later, Senator Clinton gave a major speech entitled “Rebuilding America: Improving Our Infrastructure” and endorsed the legislation, lamenting that we in the United States “are treading water and being swept backwards.” Her specific plan – like her economic stimulus package – includes a panoply of measures to repair the “backlog” of deficient transportation structures, to conduct safety reviews, to increase public transit funding (and to link these funds to local land use policies), to invest in intercity passenger rail systems, to modernize seaports, to increase funding for congestion reduction programs, and to improve broadband deployment. Senator Barack Obama’s proposal was – like his economic stimulus package – more straightforward. In his “Keeping America’s Promise” economic speech on February 13th, Senator Obama proposed a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to invest $60 billion in transportation infrastructure over ten years. He has previously called for increased Amtrak funding, high-speed railways, metropolitan planning to reduce traffic congestion, and improved transportation access for low-income commuters. On February 13th, a day after his speech, he signed onto Dodd and Hagel’s bill as a co-sponsor.

Additionally, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska proposed an amendment to the Senate’s economic stimulus package that would have directed $5 billion to states for infrastructure projects to be used before October of 2008. Senator Nelson suggested that “An investment in infrastructure and public works projects will not only achieve a much-needed boost to our economy, but will also promote long-term economic growth.”

Pronouncements by presidential candidates and a rather optimistic amendment to fast-tracked legislation are positive, if modest, indicators that a national movement to invest in infrastructure is mounting. Even relatively insignificant problems with infrastructure have received ample attention recently. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that two bridge inspectors in Georgia had been falsifying inspection records because of a fast approaching federal deadline. Officials were alerted when they noted that the two were inspecting bridges at a rate of 18 per day; the average is 12 per week. Admittedly, there are significant issues to work out with a national infrastructure bank. The European Investment Bank, an infrastructure-financing behemoth established in 1953 and a likely model for an American infrastructure bank, is criticized for its lack of transparency and its lack of social and environmental standards.

Large-scale public works projects will always be subject to conflicting priorities, funding difficulties, cronyism, and, of course, the mafia. Indeed, such infrastructure projects are designed to be patronage machines because they use public funds in part simply to create jobs. Yet, this is no reason to fall prey to the starve-the-beast philosophy of the current administration that has allowed American infrastructure to age and permitted a patchwork of private firms to profit from the spoils of disaster capitalism. Rather, emphasis must be placed on centralizing funding streams for infrastructure that can then be distributed based on a long-term vision of American economic success. Such a vision would emphasize the urban areas where most of the American population lives and from where most American prosperity is generated; would confront the environmental challenges associated with both aging infrastructure and new construction; and would consider the benefits and the dilemmas linked to the ever-increasing mobility of people and goods. With this purposefulness, infrastructure projects as fundamental and as forgotten as urban sewage facilities and desalination plants would receive the attention and the financing that they have long been denied. A National Infrastructure Bank is a means of encouraging this far-sighted vision.