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Congress has adjourned for the summer recess with neither house taking action to extend the federal surface transportation program. Hope for a timely enactment of a long term transportation bill this year all but vanished when Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, acknowledged that he does not favor raising the gas tax at this time to pay for the $500 billion transportation authorization ($450 billion for highways and transit, $50 billion for high-speed rail). He made this admission in testimony before a hearing of a House Ways and Means Subcommittee on July 23. “Although increasing and indexing the gasoline and diesel user fee is a viable financing mechanism,…I do not believe that the user fee should be increased during the current recession,” Oberstar stated, echoing the posture previously taken by the White House.
Instead, the T&I Committee chairman and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, suggested several  potential  sources of additional revenue to supplement the gas tax and close the funding gap.

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A rendering of an eTec fast-charge station. Source: Sustainable Industries
On Wednesday, President Obama announced a $2.4 billion grant program “for manufacturing advanced batteries and other components for electric cars,” according to the New York Times.

The money comes from the economic stimulus package and is intended to further several goals: cutting dependence on petroleum, reducing carbon emissions, creating jobs and giving the United States a better start on what is likely to be a competitive global industry as companies start bringing electric cars to market.

In the Cascadia Corridor, Seattle as well as Eugene, Corvallis, Salem and Portland, Ore., will benefit from a grant of just under $100 million and which was awarded to Phoenix-based eTec (Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation). Some of that grant will be used to facilitate the “installation of 2,250 charging systems for electric vehicles in the Seattle area, and about 10,000 more in other metropolitan areas,” according to industry publication Sustainable Industries.

In Seattle, eTec expects to install charging stations–which will work with any EV that uses an industry-standard connection–in the homes of EV owners at no cost and in office buildings and other public areas. eTec will also install 50 “fast-charge” systems around Seattle which can deliver a “meaningful charge” in about 15 minutes, according to Colin Read, vice president of corporate development for Ecotality, eTec’s parent company. Each charging station could cost between $1,500 and $2,500 to install, according to Fryer.

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Designated High-Speed Rail Corridors Source: Federal Railroad Administration
High-Speed Rail: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
BY Ray Chambers, Cascadia Center
Washington, D.C.–As big campaign ideas cross the Potomac River and seep into the halls of power, all that is sometimes left is a faint memory — promises unkept (often unintentionally) that the political opposition can use in the next election. But sometimes, as is happening with the development of high-speed rail, the political stars align on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, making true progress possible.
The unfolding high-speed rail network looks like the real deal for several important reasons. First there is direct presidential involvement. The Interstate Highway Act of the 1950s was President Eisenhower’s personal initiative and his highest transportation priority. Similarly, the High-Speed Rail (HSR) Corridor program is President Obama’s personal initiative and his highest transportation priority. Never underestimate the momentum of a program personally sponsored by a president.
Second, there is strong bi-partisan support in Congress. In fact the single champion for building high-speed rail corridors by mixing a huge infusion of public finance with “European style” private partnerships and entrepreneurship is U.S. Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.), Ranking Republican on the U.S. House of Representative’s Transportation Committee. Committee Chair Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) is the leading across-the-board promoter of bringing true high-speed rail to America. Representatives Oberstar and Mica have formed an alliance. With leadership by President Obama, I believe HSR will dominate the transportation agenda for the next decade. Third, there are no real alternatives. With growing traffic and congestion, the capacity of the highway system cannot be reasonably expanded. Through a variety of measures such as positive train control and infrastructure projects, the capacity on America’s existing railroad grid can be expanded to an enormous degree. It will be expensive, but not compared to the alternative. In fact, there is no alternative.
Finally, the proof of the HSR pudding is to follow the money. I began to believe this last February when the U.S. House of Representatives provided no money for HSR and the U.S. Senate provided $2 billion in the stimulus package. The Conference made an unusual compromise to fund the program at $8 billion. That was the result of President Obama’s personal intervention in the House-Senate Conference. Then the Obama budget proposed that the HSR Corridor program receive another $1 billion a year for the next five years–upping the kitty to $13 billion, as well as establishing a National Infrastructure Bank. All of this has made me a believer in the HSR initiative.

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West Coast major metro regions face growing population, plus projected increases in total vehicle miles traveled and freight volume. Traffic congestion already exacts a high toll, and without serious intervention will worsen many-fold, harming economic growth and quality of life in coming decades. That means ameliorative strategies and cross-boundary collaboration between the states are more important than ever. So, top transportation advisory panels for California, Oregon and Washington will this week hold their first-ever joint meetings, in Portland and Seattle. In a Washington State Transportation Commission press release, chair Carol Moser (below, right) says:

“These joint meetings are the first ever to occur between the West Coast commissions. These types of engagements are important for building relationships and alliances between the West Coast states. They provide the opportunity for us to partner and identify our shared transportation priorities, which we…intend to continue using as leverage in influencing our collective Congressional delegations in securing federal transportation funding for the tri-state area.”

When all three commissions meet Wednesday, July 22 in Portland, one focus will be the Columbia River Crossing bridge project planned on I-5 to replace the old, dangerous and often congested twin spans connecting Clark County, Washington and Portland. The new structure will include a light rail extension, bike and pedestrian paths, and will be electronically tolled with higher rates at peak hours. The CRC project could lead to a deeper discussion of regional highway corridor tolling in metro Portland, according to some Oregon lawmakers and Portland-area planners. That approach is making inroads in metro Puget Sound, with several related state studies underway. At the Portland meeting the three commissions will also discuss the looming federal surface transportation funding re-authorization bill. The big six-year package will likely be delayed as long as 18 months from its expiration this fall, as the Obama administration and key Congressional members slog through the difficult and politically risky work of figuring out how to replace the failing federal gas tax.
For the second year running, a stopgap infusion will be required to keep solvent the federal Highway Trust Fund, which relies on the federal gas tax. A hike in the by-the-gallon tax is possible when the bill is finally re-drawn, but there is broad consensus its primacy is ending. The gas tax’s ineffectiveness has been revealed after system maintenance and expansion badly lagged during four-and-a-half decades of robust traffic growth, plus related wear-and-tear. Other more recent constraints on gas tax revenues include continually improving vehicle mileage, a trend expected to accelerate with growing production of alternative-fueled vehicles.
Many innovations are likely in the new bill, including greater funding and policy emphases on transit, biking, urban density, tolling, vehicle mileage taxes, private investment, and – the West Coast state transportation commissions hope – freight mobility.
Also on the Portland agenda: federal funding for improved inter-city and high-speed rail; and a presentation on electronic tolling projects in the state of Washington. The meeting will be preceded by an informal discussion session among commission members, also open to the public.
The Thursday, July 23 meeting in Seattle between the Washington and California commissions will highlight several surface transportation priorities the two states share.

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Thanks to $7.6 million more in federal monies for car and passenger ferries that was secured yesterday by U.S. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, Kitsap Transit will be fully funded for a six month trial run of a high speed, low wake passenger-only ferry to serve the Bremerton-Seattle route. The 118-seat passenger ferry is being manufactured by All American Marine in Bellingham, following authorization in April by the Kitsap Transit board of a $5.3 million construction contract. It’s expected to be built by next March and in operation as soon as next June. Funds to pay for the boat’s manufacture included proceeds from a special bonding arrangement between Kitsap Transit and the county’s housing authority, plus earlier federal grants. Also on the horizon is a passenger-only ferry run between Seattle and Kingston – on the Kitsap Peninsula’s northern tip. The Port of Kingston has $3.5 million in federal money to help launch the service with a new boat but must find funding for a back-up vessel. Here’s a business plan the port presented to the Puget Sound Regional Council (pdf).
This latest federal infusion for ferries in Washington state includes $1.3 million for operations of the new Kitsap Transit foot ferry in the planned six-month trial run, to evaluate how well wake impacts are reduced; and another $1.3 million to prepare the dock to accommodate the vessel, the Kitsap Sun reports today. The $7.6 million also includes $2 million for King County’s passenger ferry district to buy a replacement for the old, slow tour boat used on its popular West Seattle Water Taxi, and $3 million for Washington State Ferries toward upgrading its car ferry terminal in Anacortes, the gateway to the San Juan Islands.
Cascadia Center has consistently championed expanded foot ferries as part of a forward-looking multi-modal transit system for metro Puget Sound. Key touchpoints in this effort include a May, 2008 conference on the Seattle waterfront where another low-wake high-speed foot ferry built by All American Marine was demo’d. Cascadia also organized a July, 2007 foot ferry symposium at Salty’s in West Seattle and in 2003 organized a special trip for policy-makers and opinion leaders to the San Francisco Bay Area to see their extensive foot ferry system in operation.
The completion of funding for the fast foot ferry trial in Bremerton is the latest and most upbeat chapter in a long and drawn-out saga.

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How America moves its people and goods in an efficient, effective, and in a secure and environmentally friendly way, will have at least as great of an effect as any other major policy decisions that the current Administration and Congress make. But, woefully, transportation isn’t really the stuff of eye-catching headlines and cocktail party chatter. That might be why, except among a small group of policy wonks, one of the most comprehensive calls for a new way of doing transportation business went largely unnoticed when it was released one month ago in Washington, D.C.
On June 9, the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center released, “Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy,” which calls for dramatic shifts in the formulation of federal transportation policy, including, for the first time, linking funding to performance. (Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center will co-host an event in Seattle in August with the Bipartisan Policy Center, INRIX and local governments to unveil the report here in the Northwest.)

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Added roadway and transit capacity, plus more toll lanes, telecommuting and flexible work hours are among the traffic congestion solutions recommended by researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) in their 26th annual Urban Mobility Report, just released. Other recommendations include getting more efficiency out of existing surface transportation systems, and influencing development patterns to make walking, bicycling and transit more convenient. TTI, founded in 1950, is an internationally-recognized transportation research center based at Texas A & M University. The 2009 report is based on newly-analyzed 2007 data for 439 U.S. urban regions. In a summary of their findings, researchers noted that although travelers on average spent one less hour stuck in traffic in 2007 versus 2006 and wasted one Read More ›

The Seattle Times reports that the Canadian government has dropped its insistence Amtrak pay $1,500 per day for immigration and customs inspections for passengers on a planned second daily train between Seattle and Vancouver. As a result, service will expand next month, and continue on at least through the 2010 Winter Olympics and paralympics in Vancouver. Over-time, cross-border trade and tourism supporters have previously said, up to four daily Seattle-Vancouver trains would be feasible. The second daily train will allow same day round-trips on Amtrak between Seattle and Vancouver’s Pacific Central Station (pictured above) and will speed travel times on the Portland to Vancouver route, as well. Vancouver Sun columnist Miro Cernetig reported earlier on studies showing an additional $1.87 Read More ›

State Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36th) makes some key points about the future of state and regional transportation funding in a Ballard News-Tribune op-ed.
After stressing funding shortfalls facing King County Metro’s bus service and declining gas tax revenues for road projects, Carlyle explores several important macro-level policy options for funding improved mobility.

…the long-term, big picture is important and we can’t let the battles over the tunnel, 520 bridge and other mega projects be a conversation killer about our broader structural challenges. Several ideas are on the front burner. Tolling is making a comeback, as evidenced by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and soon on the 520 bridge. It makes sense for the people who use facilities the most to pay a greater share of the construction and maintenance costs for a specific facility or geographic area….comprehensive regional tolling – with e-tags and other solutions to help make it easy logistically – makes good economic sense so long as we have a real action plan….
Another, if controversial, idea is charging according to vehicle miles traveled (VMT), tracked by a transponder. This would take into account actual road usage, whether or not a vehicle uses gasoline, electricity or something else. It also opens up some interesting new policy ideas such as integrating car insurance, parking (no more parking meters!), tolls, etc., into one system that is able to charge drivers accordingly and accurately. Obviously, a concern about privacy is one major obstacle to this idea, so we’ll have to continue looking at innovative ways to address this very legitimate concern…..
A third option is the car-tab fee model and using the funds for direct transportation services so the money doesn’t disappear into the institutional bureaucracy of government but rather goes for real services on the ground.

Kudos to Rep. Carlyle for highlighting in a community forum the need to develop long-term surface transportation funding strategies. Regional (electronic, time-variable) tolling and further consideration of a vehicle mileage tax – along with a local-option motor vehicle excise tax applied at annual license renewal time – are all important options that our Cascadia Center and others have advocated.
More than that, Carlyle’s commentary is especially timely.

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Like July waters in an Alpine lake, reactions continue to accumulate to the U.S. House’s passage of the 1,201-page Waxman-Markey climate legislation.

The reviews are mixed. In the Los Angeles Times, Todd Darling writes:

The bill…proposes a market-based “carbon trading” plan that mirrors a European system initiated in 2005. This plan requires polluters to obtain government-issued “carbon credits,” which then allow them to pollute above the agreed-on limit….the Waxman-Markey plan…gives 85% of the pollution credits to the biggest polluters for free….

In Europe, the distribution of free pollution credits to industries failed to establish a strong carbon market. In turn, the weak market in carbon credits failed to generate the money needed to fund new technology. And because there was a glut of free credits, polluters that went over the emissions limit could buy the necessary credits cheaply. So important states, such as Britain, continue to exceed the pollution limits.

Faced with disappointing results, Europe began auctioning off more of the credits in 2006. But the damage was done….The complex European trading scheme, started with free pollution credits, has not produced dramatic cuts in pollution or dramatic developments in technology or a robust market in carbon credits. The Financial Times of London was blunt: “Carbon markets leave much room for unverifiable manipulation. [Carbon] taxes are better, partly because they are less vulnerable to such improprieties.”

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