It’s so easy to get on the bandwagon: lower my taxes, smaller and more efficient government, don’t touch my liberties, throw the bums out, etc. But what if that bandwagon has to cross a bridge? And what if that bridge hasn’t been maintained in years?

The Tea Party has captured the imagination and spirit of many Americans and may very well turn that into a powerful voting bloc come November. But, that bloc may not have a leg or girder to stand on as our nation’s infrastructure continues to crumble. I am very concerned, from what I have read so far, and what has been ignored to date, that the Tea Party movement will throw our public works overboard with the tea.

The Tea Party stands for smaller government. I’m not going to argue with that. There are things that the government can’t repair all by itself. We can argue about laissez faire vs. public intervention when it comes to poverty or jobs. But, there isn’t much arguing that not painting a bridge leads to corrosion. Or that 100-year-old water mains need attention to protect them from leaks or worse – collapses. Infrastructure is not going to repair itself without government leadership and intervention (which to date has gotten only a D from the American Society of Civil Engineers). And the responsibility is on all politicians regardless of party affiliation. A broken bridge isn’t going to distinguish between a Democrat, Republican or Tea Party candidate driving by when it crumbles. As Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, a Republican, was quoted recently in the New York Times: “The infrastructure needs are real. We can argue about how to pay for it.”

A fiscal conservative must look at the short and long-term costs. Study after study, including Fragile Foundations commissioned by President Ronald Reagan’s National Council on Public Works Improvement, found that deferring maintenance led to much higher costs down the road (if there were a road left). It’s like your car: if you don’t get the oil changed regularly, the bearings will eventually seize and the engine will fail, forcing you to buy a new car – a much pricier option that could have been avoided. Similarly, allowing a bridge to corrode to a danger point and then building a new bridge is the far more expensive route. I’m worried that discussions about transportation issues are essentially absent from the Tea Party rhetoric. There is a startling lack of specific solutions. As New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently wrote, the Tea Party movement is “…all steam and no engine. It has no plan to restore America to greatness.” Tea Party candidates like to speak in one-liners, outdoing opponents with promises reminiscent of “no new taxes” on their lips. That could be dangerous if they win and voters hold their feet to the fire.

Public works industries and all concerned citizens need to start engaging Tea Party candidates like Rand Paul, the Kentucky Senate nominee, Christine O’Donnell, the Delaware Senate nominee, and Tea Party cheerleader and GOP darling Sarah Palin. We need to start a conversation with the Party about the critical importance infrastructure plays in our nation’s economic future, and how important funding is. Why? Because if elected, Tea Party candidates will influence the actions of the next Congress, which will most likely take up the long overdue reauthorization of the multi-year surface transportation law. The law, known as the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETY-LU), is the current authorization of federal transportation policy that expired in 2009. Congress has been dragging its feet on the bill. Looking for ways to fund the measure, Democrat Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has wisely proposed an increase in the federal gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993. Maybe he should stop calling it a tax right now, and start calling it a user fee, because Tea Partiers would not vote for a hundredth of a penny increase in the gas tax. We have to get them over the idea that no tax is a good tax, or tweak the semantics.

When it comes to our nation’s transportation infrastructure, we are in deep trouble. In his new book, Too Big to Fall: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward, author Barry B. LePatner makes a compelling case for funding to fix our roads and bridges that every candidate should read. He examined the collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis in August 2007, which killed 13 people and injured 145 others, showing us that the tragedy could have been prevented. He also warned that it could happen again at thousands of bridges across the country, with more than 50 percent of our bridges past their intended lifespan. In a recent conversation, LePatner posed a question for Tea Party candidates, turning an issue too often seen as one about bricks and mortar into a question about life and death. He asked, “If I tell you that your children, your grandchildren, and your nieces and nephews are going over bridges that are `structurally deficient’ and `fracture-critical,’ which any engineer will say can go down at any minute, does that mean anyone can tell you you’re safe? Absolutely not. Are you telling me you don’t care because you are trying to shrink the budget?”

If the Tea Party wants smaller government, they may turn to corporate America to pay for our roads, bridges and rails. The concept of privatizing transportation infrastructure was recently touted by Clifford Winston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He wrote that privatizing infrastructure would “help cut the federal deficit by raising revenues and reducing expenditures.” But the government should be wary of taking this route, or it could wind up like the driver who blindly follows his GPS onto a recently closed bridge and ends up in deep water. As my friend Joe Giglio, a Professor at Northeastern University, who has written extensively about transportation issues, and served as the chair of Reagan’s National Council on Public Works Improvement, puts it, “Privatization is as American as handguns or bourbon and branch water.” But don’t be fooled, he adds. The big argument for public-private partnerships is that private corporations have “skin in the game,” while in fact many companies are as shortsighted about revenue as the politicians are. “What is a CEO concerned with? Long-term profitability or short-term?” Dr. Giglio asks. Too often, it’s the latter goal, and that’s not good for the public when we’re talking about transportation infrastructure that’s supposed to last lifetimes. That’s not to say there aren’t times when privatization won’t work. When it comes to projects involving new technology and financial risk, let the private sector do it, Dr. Giglio said. But we must be careful about selling off our highways and roads, lest willy-nilly tolling schemes lead to unintended traffic congestion. If Americans are grumbling now about a 5 cent/gallon gas tax increase, just wait until privately managed companies start charging market rates for using roads. The year 2010 will be known as “the good old days.”

If we can’t appeal to the Tea Party’s good sense, then perhaps we could try appealing to their sense of history. This is a party, after all, whose main reference point is the Boston Tea Party. Craig Ruyle, an engineer at NYS Department of Transportation who is a history buff, points out that the conservative parties actually have a history of supporting funds for transportation infrastructure. In the pre-Civil war era, he notes, it was the Democrats who were against anything they considered “internal improvements” like building railroads and canals, claiming it was unconstitutional. It was the Whigs who pushed to invest in transportation. Why? It was all about commerce. Merchants had to move goods and prosperous commerce was vitally important for the country’s future. President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, authorized the Transcontinental Railroad. And don’t forget, a century later, it was Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower who fathered the Interstate Highway System. Fellow GOP President Ronald Reagan later imposed a five-cent-per-gallon gas tax hike for the Highway Trust Fund.

The Tea Party candidates have adopted the historic “Don’t Tread on Me,” Gadsden flag for their cause, a bright yellow flag with the coiled timber rattlesnake poised for attack. But let’s remember that this flag has been known as a symbol of patriotism as well as conflict with government. Hopefully we can harness the Tea Party’s patriotism without losing support for those things that make this country so great, including a world-class transportation system.

Samuel I. Schwartz is a former New York City Traffic Commissioner who currently writes the Gridlock Sam column for the New York Daily News and is CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering.

We work for an engineering consulting company specializing in infrastructure. Everywhere we go people are asking us about how much of a boon the stimulus plan (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, (ARRA)) has been for us. They seem surprised when we respond it has had little or no impact on our business. For us it conjures up the image of the famed Wendy’s commercial from the 1980’s used to blast the size of its competitors’ hamburgers with the question, “Where’s the beef?” Walter Mondale, on his way to the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination attacked opponent Senator Gary Hart with the same query.

In searching for the beef, one finds that although ARRA is a $787 billion program only about $130 billion or 17% is for infrastructure. Because construction takes more time to “rev up” compared to social programs, the 2009 share for public works is even less. The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) latest bi-monthly report on the Recovery Act estimates that by the end of the 2009 fiscal year, 6% of recovery spending would be given to Highways Infrastructure Investment. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reallocated $61-million (1.2% of 2009 fiscal year spending) to the Federal Transit Authority for transit projects. The bulk (76%) of the spending is going towards Medicaid and the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

ARRA has clearly created a windfall for paving contractors. Almost half the highway funds go towards pavement improvement, and 23% to pavement widening and new pavement. Another 12.5% goes toward bridge construction, replacement and improvement. The amount outlaid to highways this early in the game is not a surprise given the “shovel ready” requirement of the Recovery Act. The GAO points this out and observes that most of these pavement projects can be planned, engineered and executed within three years. Repaving the country clearly puts people to work (The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee attributed 48,000 jobs to ARAA by June 30th) but does it improve our country and help the economy in the long run?

We maintain that the shovel-ready paving jobs most likely were the easy ones to do (i.e. the road surfaces were a little cracked and uneven); really “bad” roads (having subsurface problems, safety hazards, going over bridges) would have required time-consuming engineering and are probably left to rounds 2 and 3 of ARRA. We offer reservations on the long-term economic impact of current ARRA spending on infrastructure for two main reasons. The current transportation bill just expired on September 30th and it could take months or even a year or longer for a new bill to be passed. Simultaneously, in a penny-wise pound foolish approach, half the states are cutting their transportation programs due to dire finances. This double-whammy could cause a drop in overall spending.

The good news for our quality of life is that nearly half the states are looking to improve and add rail transit. In July, states had submitted “pre-applications” for $102.5 billion to the Federal Railroad Administration for ARRA dollars. In August, about 20 states had submitted applications totaling around $7 billion. The ‘winners’ will be announced in October. But still rail spending appears to be a pittance compared to highway expenditures.

This is a shame, because the rail apportionment is the most forward-looking of the programs, and allows for work to continue for a decade. As opposed to the “shovel-ready” requirement of the FHWA dollars, it provides money for advanced planning, but only 50 cents on the dollar compared to 100% federal funding for construction. We think this is a mistake. It is the advanced planning and engineering that unleashes the progressive ‘big bucks.’

The ‘sexiest’ projects to come out of ARRA will be the high-speed rail corridors. Texas, surprisingly, has taken the lead in this race with the $1.7 billion “Texas T-Bone” plan connecting Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. California, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania are among the states in the “hunt” for high-speed rail.

Not all ARRA funding is going towards hot-shot transit projects through the rail grant. We call for a leveling of the playing field when it comes to funding bus rapid transit (BRT) versus light rail. Until now buses were less efficient and more polluting than rail. But, the 2010 BRT vehicles match light rail for speed (when dedicated right-of-way is provided), pollution and energy use. They can be built at about a third the cost of light rail, and it is possible to take these projects from concept to completion in a short amount of time. Nonetheless, light rail can be a better choice for very heavy used corridors on city streets, like Manhattan’s 42nd Street, for the fact that on-street rail is less likely to be blocked by cars than bus lanes.

Highway projects can also have some pizzazz if they are thoughtful and reflect the need for our country to become more energy efficient and to lower our carbon footprint. We urge a “complete streets” approach to highway construction in which transit, pedestrians and bike riders are seriously considered in the design. Complete streets are also a smart investment (i.e. American Reinvestment and Recovery Act), as economic returns from transportation investments which are multi-modal and connect people to regional cores can have returns up to 100 more than other investments. Had Robert Moses, New York’s legendary bridge builder in the mid-twentieth century, thought in complete streets terms he would never have built the Verrazano Bridge in 1964 with no rail, bike access or sidewalks. As a sidebar, every major New York City bridge built prior to 1910 had rail; no bridges built in the past century have had rail! New streets design should also address other 21st century threats to quality of life, by being built completely from the sub-ground up, with trees to improve air quality and porous pavements or water capturing systems to prevent flooding and water pollution.

Speaking of bridges, we have a hefty bill just to get our bridges out of the “structurally deficient” categorically (12% of the nation’s bridges or more than 72,000 structures are rated as such). The federal program has historically supported the very expensive rehab of bridges but not the very efficient low-cost maintenance programs. We urge the feds to reinforce good maintenance for federal dollars.

ARRA has reached the six month milestone with mixed results for the public works of our country. The beef may be thin but we are guardedly optimistic that thicker burgers are on their way. And in our opinion we will have lots of toppings offered for rail passengers, bus riders, pedestrians, bikers and bridge builders. This may just be the best burger ever!

Two years ago, during the Wednesday evening rush hour in Minneapolis on August 1, the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145.

Have we learned any lessons from this tragedy that help make us safer today?

Regrettably, the answer is no.

Built in 1967, the I-35W bridge is one of more than 12,800 bridges standing today designed as “fracture-critical” structures. Built for cost and construction efficiency, these bridges lacked redundancies. That means that the failure of any single structural component from corrosion, excess weight, or design or construction error, could cause the entire bridge to collapse.

In November, 2008, a National Transportation Safety Board report placed primary responsibility for the failure on improperly thin gusset plates, the steel plates fastening two or more beams together.

However, the report failed to explain the lack of action after photographs taken in 1999 and 2003 showed that these gusset plates had bent.

The state transportation department had used federal remediation funds received for the bridge in 1991 and had rated I-35W “poor” from a structural standpoint since 1993. Nonetheless, on the day of the collapse, state engineers had permitted construction crews to pile more than 587,000 pounds of roadbed material on a portion of the bridge positioned over the damaged gusset plates.

Lingering questions extend beyond the four-decade-long puzzle of why a fracture-critical bridge — with steel plates that were apparently too thin — did not fail for 40 years after it was built.

Why did inspectors not flag the bent plates and the too-thin plates and urge action? When consultants in 2006 recommended that the bridge needed to be repaired or replaced, why was the project designated a “budget buster” by state transportation officials and scheduled for replacement in 2020?

And what about new engineering reports that differ dramatically with the NTSB findings? These reports indicate that the failure was not triggered by faulty gusset plates but by frozen bearings that did not allow the bridge to expand in the summer heat.

Nationwide, inspection programs are largely visual and typically subjective. And while technology exists that can measure subtle, unusual movements in bridges, spot cracks in steel before they are visible, and acoustically “listen” to bridges to identify changes in patterns and much more, few state transportation agencies employ these tools. These technologies cost relatively little and would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually if widely adopted. (Disclosure: One of the authors owns shares in a company that makes these instruments).

There are now 72,000 structurally deficient bridges nationwide, a figure inclusive of the 12,800 “fracture-critical” structures cited above. At the very least, the collapse should have spurred the NTSB to call upon every state with similarly designed bridges to take immediate steps to rectify their deficiencies.

Disturbingly, I-35W was not an isolated case: studies show that nearly 600 American bridges have failed since 1989.

Previous generations starved bridges of adequate maintenance funds. Today, that bill is coming due. America spends about two percent of our GDP on infrastructure. China spends 9 percent and most of Europe invests 4-5 percent.

According to House Appropriations Committee figures, the President’s stimulus-focused infrastructure program allocates $52.7 billion toward transportation-related projects. But this is largely a job stimulus program that aims to do relatively little about infrastructure repair and maintenance.

We are nowhere near investing the amounts needed to address our ailing infrastructure. In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the cost of bringing America’s infrastructure up to standard at $1.6 trillion. In 2009, the organization put the figure at $2.2 trillion. The longer the delay, the higher the cost — and the higher the chance of another calamity.

As we mark the second anniversary of the Minneapolis tragedy, our public officials ought to honor the memory of those who died by taking proper steps to prevent future such disasters.

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Barry B. LePatner, Esq., is founding partner of LePatner & Associates, LLP, a New York City law firm that specializes in construction. He is the author of Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets: How to Fix America’s Trillion Dollar Construction Industry, (University of Chicago Press, 2007) and the forthcoming book Roadblock: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward, to be published by the University of Chicago Press.

Samuel I. Schwartz is president of Sam Schwartz Engineering, PLLC, a Professional Engineer and was New York City Department of Transportation Chief Engineer from 1986-1990. In 1988 he ordered the closing of the Williamsburg Bridge because of structural deficiencies.

A rail plan by another name could smell sweeter

Shakespeare mused that a rose would smell just as sweet by any other name. Not so for a public-works program. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s highway plan received instant public comprehension when he branded it the “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.” This name implies a national building program in which all states would be linked and troops and military equipment could move swiftly from coast to coast and border to border. It also has sticking power. While “defense” may have been dropped along the way, everybody still refers to it as “The Interstate.” We’ve had 10 presidents since Eisenhower and many party-in-power swings, yet the Interstate has survived them all.

President Obama’s high-speed rail plan is noble but sounds like and is today just a way to speed trips between certain cities (10 corridors at the moment). That’s just too short-sighted. We need a vision that links the country, all the major urban centers, together with high-speed rail. It must be a network plan; not just a corridor plan. And it must have a name. Here’s our candidate: The Interstate Rail Defense Network. To build the constituency for such a network it is worth looking at how “Ike” did it.

The Interstate Genesis: A cross-country trip in 1919

The Interstate Highway System as we know it today was the product of a vision. In 1919 Lieutenant Dwight D. Eisenhower crossed the country from Washington to San Francisco in a military truck convoy. The trip was extremely slow, taking 62 days. In his memoirs he wrote that the journey “had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways.” As Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, Eisenhower experienced firsthand Germany’s autobahn network of superhighways. At that time the German autobahn network was known to include some of the best roads in the world. He had noted that even after heavy bombing of German roads during World War II military convoys managed to get through because of the design of the autobahn. Sparked by these two experiences, and with the backdrop of a Cold War that led to specters of mass evacuations of cities after nuclear bombings, President Eisenhower urged Congress to enact the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, creating the interstate system, which is today called the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. In President Eisenhower’s words, “This was one of the things that I felt deeply about, and I made a personal and absolute decision to see that the nation would benefit by it.” For this reason, President Eisenhower is known as the “Father of the Interstate System.”

The development of the Interstate Highway System revolutionized transportation in the United States. It allowed people to travel more freely than ever before, while also stimulating commerce and bolstering national security. But, after fifty years of thriving, the success of the highway system is at last beginning to falter. Commerce is foundering as traffic congestion impedes goods from moving freely. The safety of the public is at risk as auto accidents continue to increase (there were 41,059 traffic fatalities in 2007). Finally, our environment is suffering for the astonishing quantity of greenhouse gases emitted by cars and planes each year. Now it’s time for a second revolution – one that addresses and improves upon all of President Eisenhower’s visionary goals plus those newly pertinent to today’s world. It’s time to stop thinking superhighway and start thinking superrailway!

A National Train Network is a win (less congestion)-win (fewer greenhouse gases)-win (safer)-win (less reliance on foreign oil).

One passenger train has the potential to remove 500-600 cars from the road and one freight train can eliminate up to 200 trucks. By decongesting the highway system, goods can be transported more easily both by truck and by rail. This could effectively improve commerce which, in turn, would aid our ailing economy.

A national rail network can also aid the military transport of freight and people, in the event of a national defense crisis or natural disaster, with its high-speed trains crisscrossing the country, and by decongesting highways for military vehicles.

Rail is also proven to be a far safer mode of transportation than the automobile. According to the American Public Transportation Association, in 2008 the fatality rate for traveling by rail was .03 per 100 million passenger miles, while the fatality rate for traveling by car was .74 per 100 million passenger miles. By shifting a large portion of our population to rail, we also significantly improve public safety.

In terms of the environment, air and auto travel consume about fifty percent more energy per passenger-mile than rail. It has been said that a 60 percent reduction in flights is what is necessary to stabilize CO2 levels. However, most travelers consider time and cost over environmental impacts when choosing their mode of transport. Thus, travelers almost always opt for air or auto. In the busy northeast corridor, planes are the fastest mode of travel while cars are the cheapest. Even between New York City and Philadelphia, where rail is the fastest mode, it is so much cheaper to travel by car that most travelers end up driving. For short- and mid-distance trips (of up to say, 500 miles), for the sake of commerce, public safety, and the environment, we really need to do whatever possible to make rail the most attractive option.

It is clear that a real U.S. rail system could have the ability to re-revolutionize transportation as well as reduce our impact on the environment. Thankfully, the Obama administration has taken the first steps toward implementing a network of national high-speed rail. President Obama has set forth a high-speed rail plan and has allocated $8 billion to begin construction. In his words, “high-speed rail is long overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways.” We applaud this statement and are delighted that rail is finally getting the attention it deserves. Now we need specific, quantifiable goals.

A plan for 2050

Today, rail in the U.S. accounts for approximately 5.6 billion passenger miles of travel each year (as compared with 516 billion on airlines and 2.5 trillion in private automobiles). Let’s look to a ten-fold increase. That means that by 2050 we should be able to achieve about 56 billion miles of passenger travel by rail annually. Given the relative fatality rates of each mode (discussed earlier), by shifting 56 billion miles of passenger travel to rail by 2050, we can expect to save approximately 400 lives each year. Likewise, the energy savings could be tremendous. Given the relative energy savings of rail, we can reduce energy consumption by trillions of BTU’s annually.

Financing the plan

So how do we think this can be done? President Obama’s $8 billion is a good start. Indeed, one of the intentions of committing those funds was to capitalize on the economic engine of building rail. We think the federal government needs to increase its investment. Construction of tracks should be 100% subsidized by the federal government. After all, roads (the equivalent of tracks for rail) are almost always fully subsidized. In our opinion, there should be little or no capacity increases on the Interstate Highway System over the next four decades; what money would have been spent on capacity increases should be shifted to the Interstate Rail Network. We suggest shifting just $10 billion per year from highways to high-speed rail for the next 40 years.

The federal government should also seek to establish public-private partnerships (PPP’s). By leveraging investment from the private sector, infrastructure projects nationwide are being built and operated with widespread success in returns. And PPP’s are beginning to pop up for rail as well. The California High-Speed Rail Authority currently anticipates $4.5 to $7 billion in public-private partnership investment for the state’s planned high-speed rail system. Such a model should be incorporated into national thinking and for inclusion into an Infrastructure Investment Bank, as proposed by Senators Dodd (D) and Hagel (R) and supported by candidate Obama, as it could prove critical to the success of national rail. We suggest aiming for $100 billion in private investment funds for a total spending on high-speed rail of $500 million by 2050.

Trains are Romantic

But beyond investment and faster trains, we need to change the public’s perception of rail travel. Trains used to be romantic. The vision was of a candlelit dinner with a good bottle of wine and white linen tablecloths, rolling alongside a river at sunset, and arriving at your destination calm and refreshed.“There was a romance to train travel then,” said Carl Erskine, who pitched two no-hitters with the Brooklyn Dodgers . “When you walked into the dining car, you could smell the steaks. There was heavy silver, good china and white linen tablecloths as you went out of Grand Central along the Hudson River and across upstate New York. (Sports of the Times: The Romance of Teams Traveling by Train, by Dave Anderson, May 10, 2009)
Perhaps this image is not quite realistic anymore. But maybe we can at least bring back some of the romanticism once associated with trains. Amtrak uses vintage posters to create a feeling of nostalgia. This is the right idea. We should start thinking about spreading this image even further or even creating newer, more modern images of rail that are equally as quixotic.

President Obama’s Legacy: “The Father of the Interstate Rail Network”

Let’s finally make rail work. As President Eisenhower was the “Father of the Interstate System,” so President Obama has the potential to become the “Father of the Interstate Rail Network.” It really takes a visionary to enact such major infrastructural changes in our country. But President Obama is a visionary and the seed is already beginning to sprout. We urge this administration to think huge because it’s time to prepare our nation for its next step: a new system of superrailways.

A note of thanks to Dan McNichol, author of The Roads That Built America. My inspiration for the connection to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1919 trek came after I heard Mr. McNichol speak recently.

This is our year. Infrastructure is no longer just a word thrown about by policy wonks and engineers. The public, and more importantly politicians, have made public works, especially transportation, a front and center issue. The White House brings a fresh outlook on transportation policy and land use decisions – US Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has recently announced his “2-foot NM” rule which would require all business trips by US DOT workers of less than two miles to be made on two feet. Already, President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (known to most as the Stimulus Package) provided approximately $46 billion directly to transportation and much of that to green transportation. And, just as we’re beginning to put that money to use, we’re also beginning to launch into high gear on the reauthorization of the Federal Transportation Bill. The reauthorization will provide a longer-term strategy for building up an innovative, sustainable transportation policy.

The 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETY-LU), the current authorization of federal transportation policy included $287 billion in approved funding and expires on September 30, 2009. We strongly urge legislators to act quickly on reauthorization to avoid further injuring our financially-strapped transportation system. They must also “think big” (say $500+ million big) and think wisely and efficiently.

The new administration clearly talks a good game when it comes to sustainable transport; reauthorization is the perfect opportunity to “walk the talk.” But, it’s not just a matter of money – transportation investments can be constructive, or destructive, to our nation’s resources. Poor funding decisions can also increase our dependence on foreign oil which affects, in turn, foreign policy. Where and how we spend is key to a sagacious program. In short, we must rely less on cars and trucks and more on rail and bus. We must live closer to where we work and be able to walk, bike or take transit there. We must end our culture of “consuming a gallon of gas to buy a gallon of milk.”

We were pleasantly surprised to find $8 billion in the stimulus bill for high-speed rail. Reauthorization should quintuple that number to spark at least five and maybe 10 high-speed rail corridors. It should be noted that China is spending over $1 trillion on high-speed rail, the largest public works project in the world next to President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System. Our goal is to make rail between large cities competitive with air travel for short-haul trips of less than 500 miles. This would reduce our carbon footprint and increase efficiency at overloaded airports. The United States rail system should also be strengthened to accommodate a much larger share of freight traffic. Rail is more energy-efficient than trucks and one freight train can potentially remove 200 trucks from the highway system.

Current transportation policy allocates much of its funding to Departments of Transportation (DOTs). But as most DOTs are run at the state, rather than at the city level, the objective of the DOT is generally to efficiently move people between cities. And besides the rail initiatives discussed above, this typically means investment in highway infrastructure. Very few cities actually have their own DOTs. However, approximately 80 percent of Americans currently live in metropolitan areas. Therefore, there should be a much greater emphasis on providing funding for efficiently moving people within cities. But even the city DOTs that do exist are bound within the physical city limits. The new transportation bill should establish funding and authority at the regional level to ensure that all metropolitan areas modernize across city borders to incorporate the full range of transportation modes. Further, each regional transportation planning entity should be required to establish a clear statement of objectives and be accountable.

Building highways in cities should be the option of last resort. Cities should be offered “highway diet” subsidies to not invest in new roads but rather reduce car use through approaches like congestion pricing and improved transit. Instead of just a few hundred million being offered nation-wide for congestion pricing as done in the recent past, we suggest $10 billion that would be used to incentivize cities to make major modal shifts away from highways. We suggest this be cost-neutral by reducing highway investment by $10 billion. (Frankly, as long as it’s cost neutral the cap could be way higher).

In terms of public transportation, the reauthorized federal transportation bill should encourage more competition in mode selection. For example, BRT is now competitive with light rail in terms of environmental impacts, speed and capacity at a third the cost. A new “New Starts” program (the federal funding vehicle for many light rail projects) needs to be revamped to reflect the reality of 2010 technologies.

Finally, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, have already been in discussions over possible linkages between transportation and housing policies. This could include locating affordable housing near public transportation, connecting existing housing communities with transit services, or building shorter street blocks to facilitate walking. We believe that there should be provisions in the new bill to encourage such links.

The 2009 reauthorization of the existing transportation bill should recognize the importance of sustainable transportation both within and between the country’s metropolitan areas. It should provide funding and authority to regional transportation planning entities with a focus on changing existing modal splits. Our reliance on the interstate highway system for short-haul passenger or freight trips needs to change. We should shift our mid-haul trips from air to rail. Within urban areas we need to expand the use of BRT for high-quality mass transit. We must understand both that transportation affects where we live and work and that where we live and work affects transportation. Overall, we must reduce driver-only travel, curtail our reliance on foreign oil, and change our day-to-day behavior. Only a multi-agency approach can achieve a multi-modal society.

Last April, chagrined transportation professionals from New York were aghast to find their L.A. compatriots wearing “I Love NY” buttons.  The Angelinos were enamored of the Big Apple because we had just forked over our $354 million in federal funds for congestion pricing after the New York State Assembly failed to even hold a vote on the matter.  The City of Angels (as well as Chicago, St. Louis and others) is hoping for a repeat as New York struggles in planning for stimulus money.

The infrastructure portion of the stimulus bill (don’t call it that to the administration; they are very sensitive and it must be called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) is aimed at “shovel-ready” projects, meaning that funds must be allocated almost immediately with at least half the money obligated within 180 days of the bill’s February 17th enactment. Unobligated funds would be redistributed presumably to states that met or exceeded the 50% threshold. The rest of the money must be obligated within one year. But, there’s one pot of money that has a much longer window — in fact, longer than 10 years.  In a “squeaker,” the high-speed rail initiative went from zero to $2 Billion to $8 Billion in the final version.  And there’s more where that came from.  All expectations are on the new federal transportation bill (the old one expires in September 2009) to include billions more.

A real rail network, as what is seen today in Europe and parts of Asia, is what this country’s transportation system truly lacks. Rail has the potential to seriously improve the environment by reducing the large carbon footprint produced by short-haul air or motor vehicle travel. A high-speed rail line for trips of less than 500 miles can easily compete and should beat air travel. So, if we are looking for opportunities to make transport more sustainable and connect and revitalize major cities, why not start at home?

We are pleased that Governor Paterson and the New York State Department of Transportation recently released their New York State Rail Plan 2009 – Strategies for a New Age, the state’s first comprehensive rail plan in 22 years. The Plan creates a 2020 vision for a statewide high-speed (we think medium-speed is more like it with top speeds of 110 mph vs. Asian and European high speeds of 200+ mph) rail network. Such an aggressive target year is laudable for the changes that the Plan proposes: reliable and frequent service between New York City and Albany; increased and improved service between Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and Rochester (the Empire Line); a 6½ hour trip between Albany and Montreal (the Adirondack Line); a modernization and improvement in the state’s freight rail system; and a host of other improvements.

However, we want the state to begin thinking on an even grander scale. While medium-speed rail may be achievable by 2020, high-speed is certainly within reach by 2030.  Here’s New York State’s chance to step up to the plate and take what’s rightfully ours. By the way, we also call for upgrades of the Northeast Corridor – but we’re less worried about that because of strong advocacy by our Veep and a cadre of U.S. senators and congress people. We want to speed up service on the Empire and Adirondack Lines, beyond the 110mph laid out in the Plan, to run competitively with systems in China, Japan, and soon California so let’s aim for 250mph or NY to Buffalo in less than 3 hours and to Albany in an hour.  Montreal and Toronto could be just 3 and 5 hours away, respectively, even with customs checks on the train!

Upstate New York cities are dying – they started experiencing their own recession decades before the rest of the country fell into the recession we live with today. Frankly, while the country is catching a cold now or even the flu, we’re worried upstate will catch pneumonia. Bringing them hours closer to New York City — the world’s capital — will give them an enormous boost. Linking them with Toronto and Montreal will create a cosmopolitan opportunity to Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and Albany. And by revitalizing our cities, New York State can really begin promoting compact, urban development – another huge plus for the environment.

Another major issue affecting our state’s economic well-being is the transport of freight. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey faces fierce competition with the Port of Baltimore. By strengthening our freight rail network, we may be able to capture some of the freight which is currently directed to Baltimore. Also, by providing a reliable freight rail link into Canada, we can make New York Harbor into a faster, more economical gateway for trans-shipment to the Canadian and upper Mid-West markets that are currently served by slow ships on the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes. Heck, throw in Congressman Jerry Nadler’s freight tunnel, link it with an upstate freight line and we will be on our way toward restoring New York Harbor as the Port of Entry to the U.S. east of The Mississippi and reestablishing New York City as the world’s port.

But we can’t rely solely on federal dollars to see our vision through. We must come up with a long term funding plan to assist a new rail system.  We look to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) model created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller over 40 years ago.  Today, the MTA Bridges and Tunnels (née Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority (TBTA)) hands over its excess revenue to its parent, the MTA. This money, in turn, helps fund New York City Transit, MTA Bus, and the commuter rail lines. We propose a similar model to help subsidize rail initiatives and operations throughout the state. In this case, we would recommend using the tolls on the New York State Thruway and introducing tolls on roads which parallel the rail system.  Toll rates would be set to include a subsidy for the rail.  This would also have the effect of shifting some freight and passenger traffic from the Thruway to the railways.  That means faster travel for motorists and less need to widen the Thruway as the upstate economy recovers.

High-speed rail for New York State already has its champions. Senator Chuck Schumer (D) called the plan a “great first step” towards a European-style system. Representative Louise Slaughter (D) has suggested aiming for electric trains that run at 150mph or faster which would develop the economy of Upstate New York. Representative Jerrold Nadler (D) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) have also voiced support. We need to rally our champions to think even one step further. And perhaps we should also go beyond state lines to consider connecting our fast service with other cities and another country, Canada, to garner even more support.

We are at an exciting, but critical point in United States rail history. Rail is finally getting the attention it deserves and the dollars are beginning to flow in. But if we don’t think like visionaries now, we risk giving up our potential, and ending up with a good (yes, it will be good!) rail system that results in impressive – but not extraordinary – change.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Number Thirteen Line, a monthly blog about transportation in New York and around the world. This month’s topic: The Stimulus Package and its impact on transportation.

Seven hundred and ninety billion dollars, as designated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is a lot of money. Frankly, we had hoped that most of it would go toward public works projects; after all, good infrastructure projects have been shown to produce five times the GDP impact of broad-based tax cuts. Nonetheless, we understand reality doesn’t always play out the way we’d like. So we are reasonably pleased to see that $130-billion, of the $790-billion bill (16%), is intended for construction projects.

The really good news from a transport perspective is that high-speed and existing long-haul rail will receive more than $9 billion. Urban transit gets a nice sized boost as well. So what can we, as New Yorkers, expect and what should we demand?

Approximately $1.3-billion of the funds are being directed to on-going capital transit programs in the New York City metropolitan area. This means that projects such as the Fulton Street Transit Center and the No. 7 Subway Extension will finally be built. There’s little left for much else, so we must be thrifty in advancing other new projects. We are also limited in our imagination by the requirement that projects be “shovel-ready.” In an upcoming blog we will let our imaginations go wild.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has been lauded worldwide as the one of the cheapest, most easily-implementable forms of mass transit (read “shovel-ready”), widely popular among riders and similar to light rail transit in its ability to carry people. And it fits perfectly into the objectives of the stimulus package as it can be planned, designed, and constructed in just one year. We recently planned and designed a BRT line on Fordham Road in the Bronx (disclosure: we are consultants to the New York City Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Transportation Authority on BRT) which was quickly implemented and has been enjoying wide success. We should demand a network of BRT solutions city-wide

One of the most surprising elements of the Stimulus Bill is the provision of $8-billion for high-speed rail and intercity passenger rail service and, less surprisingly, $1.3-billion for Amtrak. America is far behind the rest of the developed world in its rail service. Today, it’s cheaper to fly between New York City and Boston than it is to take medium-speed rail. Given the much heavier carbon footprint that air travel produces, we should be doing everything in our power to make rail travel cheaper, faster, and more attractive. As New Yorkers, we should be pushing for some of this money to fund a high-speed rail line connecting New York City with Albany and Buffalo. Rails can be repaired and replaced, switches and signals modernized and train cars can be purchased all within the guidelines of the bill. Few people today heading from New York City to Buffalo or anywhere in Western New York would even consider using the anemic Amtrak because of the slow speeds and unreliability. The February 16th crash of Flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo underscores this need for improved alternatives for short-haul travel. For the long term we should replace most air travel between cities under 500 miles apart by swift-moving rail.

But while the stimulus package was indeed meant as a short-term solution to fueling the economy, there seems to be a disconnect. We are losing certain transit services and paying more for what we have while federal funds are creating brand new services. That’s like spending the money to renovate your kitchen when your electricity has recently been shut off. We are being seduced by ribbon cuttings. Directing funds to existing services could maintain the jobs of bus drivers and maintenance workers that will be lost in favor of the creation of new short-term construction jobs. In fact, we will have just as much of a problem supporting the operations of new facilities and services as we did the ones that we are now losing. We should be acting more responsibly. One thought is to invest some of the stimulus money into a fund that will perpetually pay for maintenance of the facilities to be built.

The stimulus bill had a specific objective and appears to be taking many right – and some wrong – steps towards fulfillment of its goal. But it represents new money – bonus money – in our transportation system. But, what is soon to become the more critical issue regarding federal transportation spending is the upcoming reauthorization of the five-year transportation bill. (the current transportation bill expires on September 30, 2009). This is where the real reforms need to happen. An even greater focus needs to be placed on transit, specifically on cost-effective, quickly-implementable projects like BRT, as well as on high-speed passenger rail, to replace short-haul air trips. And rather than gearing all federal transit funds toward capital projects, the Federal Transit Administration should make maintenance and operations eligible for assistance. Only then will we begin to experience an efficient, robust, and environmentally-sound transportation system that can create jobs and provide equal access to an entire region’s population. This will be the topic of an upcoming The Number Thirteen Line.

Samuel I. Schwartz is a former New York City Traffic Commissioner who currently writes the Gridlock Sam column for the New York Daily News and is CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering. Annie Weinstock is a senior planner at Sam Schwartz Engineering and has published several articles on transportation policy. She also worked on Stockholm’s congestion pricing program.

On October 14, 2008 I wrote an article for Blueprint America: Infrastructure Isn’t Partisan: Gridlock Sam’s Advice for the Next President. In it I proposed a six point transportation plan which continues to be relevant today that calls for President-elect Obama to:

1. Create a National Infrastructure Bank
2. Ensure safety in our infrastructure
3. Rebuild and expand our passenger and freight rail systems
4. Upgrade our air transport management systems
5. Modernize our ports
6. Level the playing field between highways, transit and other modes of transport

This broad outline should serve as the skeleton for President-elect Obama’s transport program but, by simply touting infrastructure as a short-term plan to spur job creation, we may lose the forest for the trees. Rather than choosing between projects that will create jobs and those that will have a meaningful impact on our nation’s infrastructure, President-elect Obama can do both by evaluating projects using the criteria described below.

I am joined in writing this paper by my daughter Deena Schwartz, a public policy analyst with experience studying poverty and labor markets.

Haste may make waste if we’re not careful
Since Barack Obama’s election to the presidency on November 4th the infrastructure community has been chomping at the bit. It has never had a president-elect who talked their language, “Infrastructure = Jobs.” The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO) says $64 billion worth of road and bridge projects could be under contract within six months. Transit advocates have a pipeline of $25 billion worth of contracts that could be “on the street” in less than a year. The nation’s governors, meeting with Obama post-election, said they had $136 billion ready-to-go. Mayor from 427 cities say their wish list of “quick-burn” projects is $73 billion.

I absolutely encourage state and local elected officials to get their projects off the drawing boards ASAP. But, I caution the new White House not to accept a project simply because it will create jobs sooner than other better thought-out proposals that may create even more long-lasting jobs and be more sustainable. House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) may have said it best when he warned that the infrastructure monies should not be used for “pork barrel spending masquerading as economic stimulus.” In short, there are worthy projects and wasteful projects. Here’s how the Obama administration should discern amongst the candidates.

Screen projects for impact on economy, environment and public safety

Economy
The obvious parameters are the number of jobs projects will create and how fast they can get started. Creating jobs quickly is fine, but we need to ensure that infrastructure projects will have long-lasting economic benefits beyond providing jobs during construction. The effects of the so-called “Bridge-to-nowhere” in Alaska would undoubtedly have a lesser impact on growth than the Dulles Metrorail Project, a new 23-mile transit line connecting Northern Virginia to the rest of the DC region.

We should add points for investment of private monies. This would encourage the formation of public-private partnerships (P-3’s) to leverage federal dollars and get projects built more quickly. There have been plenty of warnings of P-3’s and how government gets short-changed. Government needs to get smarter and build in safeguards, like business professor Joe Giglio’s formula creating P-3 boards including representatives from the government, the private partners and local business leaders. The intent is to see that the public interests are protected by the government, the greater good by local business leaders while the private sector gets a good return on its investment.

The screening process should include an equity analysis to consider the economic climate of the region where the money is to be spent. We have noticed that the states that have the largest wish-list tend to have lower unemployment rates than those at the bottom. Some of the poorer states may need more help getting their projects on-line. States should also work with the workforce development field to ensure that those most in need get the necessary job training and job placement assistance to obtain these jobs.

The Environment
President Obama has made it clear that we must re-build our infrastructure in a way that reduces our carbon footprint. In a recent speech unveiling his public works platform he said, “We’ll measure progress…by the jobs we create, by the energy we save…”

This would favor transit projects over highway projects. It means an agenda that crosses agencies encouraging smart growth and new urbanism. Obama recognizes the relationship between how we live, where we live and the impact on our environment and the contributions to green-house gases. Projects such as transit-oriented developments (TOD’s) would trump sprawl plans like highway extensions. Tysons Corner, Virginia is an excellent example of where investment in transit, by providing four rail stations to link it to the entire D.C. metro area, can reduce driving dramatically, increase density around stations (TOD’s), and thus, reduce the overall contribution of its residents and workers to greenhouse gasses. The Dulles project includes four stations in Tysons Corner where currently parking spaces outnumber residents by 10 to 1.

A sustainable agenda would increase the gas tax by at least 10 cents (what a great opportunity now, with gas at $2/gallon or less, to also index it to inflation) and encourage user fees for motor vehicles based on Time-Distance-Place (TDP) pricing as advocated by the D.C. transportation economist Gabriel Roth. Such fee structures are nothing new. We pay more for electricity in the summer and during the business day. Most toll roads are distance-based, the farther you travel the more you pay. And our hotels are place-based; Midtown Manhattan rooms are twice the rate or more of Hoboken rooms five miles away.

When we do build roads we should encourage complete streets, meaning access for all, including pedestrians, bike riders and public transit riders. Each project should include walkways, bike paths and transit where appropriate. The materials we use should be recyclables and the drainage systems designed with plantings and absorption elements to minimize runoff to our streams and waterways.

Safety
More than 42,000 people die on our roads in traffic crashes each year. More than 72,000 of our bridges are structurally deficient. The Minnesota bridge that collapsed in 2007 killing thirteen and injuring over 140 people was rated structurally deficient. The terrible and preventable train crash in California that claimed 25 lives on September 12, 2008 between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train emphasized the ancient safeguards on our rail systems.

We should set a goal to cut our traffic fatalities in half by 2020. We could put many traffic engineers and highway crews to work modernizing our traffic systems, installing roundabouts in lieu of signals in many locations ( a proven life-saver and energy saver), and expanding pedestrian and traffic safety programs in our towns and cities.

Eliminating every structurally deficient bridge in the country is a realistic goal. As Chief Engineer at NYC DOT I set in motion a program to do that for city-owned bridges nearly twenty years ago, and we’re just about there. As I stated in my October 14, 2008 article we, as a country, should set a goal to have no federal bridges rated structurally deficient by 2025, and no local bridge deficient by 2035. Now mind you that there are bridges considered functionally deficient because the traffic volumes exceeds the capacity of the roadway; we would not press for their inclusion for priority treatment. In fact, projects that would increase road capacity would be closely scrutinized for their impacts on the environment. Bridge repair may not be the most politically exciting topic, but it is something that can create jobs quickly and is desperately needed.

We recommend supporting projects that increase the safety of public transportation by rail, bus, ferry and air. Fail-safe signal systems that could have prevented September’s California train disaster should be accelerated country-wide. Similarly, the NextGen Air Transportation System using satellite-based navigation should be adopted.

Conclusion
We have an opportunity to put lots of people to work and build much-needed infrastructure. We can be smart about what we fund or we can squander mega-billions in public funds. It is incumbent upon our incoming administration to process applications for funding swiftly but wisely, weeding out those projects that provide only short-term economic benefits or are inconsistent with goals of a greener, more productive country. We should also see this as an opportunity to save tens of thousands of lives that are lost each year during the simple act of trying to get somewhere. Each decision should meet the litmus test of whether it will put people to work now to build a stronger country for the future.

Sam Schwartz is one of the leading transportation engineers in the United States, the New York traffic commissioner who coined the term “gridlock” in the 1980s, author of the daily “Gridlock Sam” column in the Daily News, founder of a traffic consulting and design firm that has been involved in many of NYC’s largest planning issues, including congestion pricing and construction of the new Mets stadium– and formerly a cab driver.

Deena Schwartz is a graduate student at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, focusing on Public Policy Analysis and anti-poverty policy.