America 2050

The Baltimore Business Journal recently outlined the efforts of a coalition working to promote public transit over highway projects.  MOREtransit, Movement of Organizations for Regional Expansion of Transit, is pushing to transfer funds from roads to mass transit.  Currently, Outlook 2035, the plan of the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board, a division of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, emphasizes highway expansion. 

The transportation board is planning $2 billion for transit projects, and $6.2 billion for highway.  MOREtransit is proposing the following amendments, which it presented this week at a board meeting:

        • $3 billion for regional rapid transit system
        • $550 million new passenger rail tunnel connecting Penn Station and West Baltimore
        • $488 million for MARC Penn Line improvements
        • And $200 million for MARC Camden Line improvements.

In addition, MOREtransit also proposes decreasing highway funding by more than $2 billion, while budgeting more than $60 million for bike and pedestrian projects.  The organization is working to integrate and expand the current system, while also making major improvements within the region as well as improve connections to the Northeast Corridor.

Photo: David B. Davies

While airlines are running later and with more delays than ever -- a third of flights arrived late at La Guardia Airport between June 1 and Aug. 15, according to Flightstats.com -- Acela's performance is improving. The train is running on time 88% of the time, so far this year -- up from 84% a year ago. It was 90% on time in June. With Amtrak selling every seat on some Acela trains in peak travel periods, Amtrak recently added another weekday Acela round trip between New York and Washington to keep up with growing demand. The new train dropped all but one stop, Philadelphia, shaving 15 minutes off the normal 2¾-hour, five-stop New York-Washington trip.

A spokeswoman for JetBlue Airways Corp., Forest Hills, N.Y., says it's wrong for tax dollars to be used to subsidize Amtrak passenger trains "when a modernized air-traffic-control system is not yet in place or even funded."

August first’s collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis offered a stark demonstration of the state of infrastructure in the nation – a topic which normally receives scant attention in the media. It also coincided with proposed legislation by Senate Banking Chairman, Christopher Dodd (D-CT) to establish a national infrastructure bank with $60 billion credit bonding capacity to fund publicly held projects.

The legislation seeks to fill the funding gap to repair and modernize aging infrastructure projects across the nation. As summarized by the proposed Act’s authors, these gaps include:

• An estimated $21.8 billion annual need over 20 years to improve operational capacity of transit systems (Federal Transit Administration.)
• $131.7 billion and $9.4 billion annually for 20 years to fix “deficient” roads and bridges, respectively (Federal Highway Administration.)
• $151 billion and $390 billion annually for 20 years to repair obsolete drinking water and wastewater systems (Environmental Protection Agency.)

In February 2007, Regional Plan Association and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy hosted the National Roundtable on Surface Transportation at the Pocantico Conference Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Roundtable brought together leaders in transportation, land use, and the private sector to explore reform proposal to national transportation policy.

Current transportation legislation at the federal level - SAFETEA-LU of 2005 - expires in September 2009. Policy experts agree that a new policy model is needed to support the nation's growth and competitiveness in the 21st century. A common theme in our discussions was that national transportation policy must support a strong national purpose to overcome the politics of earmarks.

The final report contains discussion papers by Michael Meyer of Georgia Tech, Gary Maring of Cambridge Systematics and Mortimer Downey III, as well as a summary of discussions.