Category: DOT

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DOT Elections Infrastructure United States

The path to a better transport system runs through progressive states and cities

We’re two weeks out from the 2020 United States presidential election, and the winner will undoubtedly play an important role in directing American urban policy. Given the importance of the presidency and the high stakes of the position on every policy area, it is hard not to focalize on this electoral race as key in establishing what sort of future the United States will have.

Hoping to respond to the economic crisis brought on by COVID-19 and the prospect of Democratic control over both houses of Congress and the White House, Senate Democrats have begun preparations for a $1 trillion infrastructure package. If the legislation pulls from this year’s House-passed H.R. 2 and from Joe Biden’s presidential platform, the legislation could include new funding for electrification; increased support for transit and intercity railways; and requirements that states “fix it first” before expanding highways. These are good concepts, and indeed, there is a lot of room for federal intervention, especially when it comes to filling the gaps left by declining tax revenues over the past several months, particularly when Americans support a potential big federal stimulus by an enormous margin.

Yet the key questions regarding transportation in the United States—whether the country is able to truly adapt its mobility system to mitigate the devastation wrought by climate change; whether we integrate transportation and land-use planning so as to reduce exurban expansion and automobile dependency; whether we harness access as a tool to reduce inequality, rather than as a mechanism to further empower and enrich a lucky few—are in fact more often than not in the hands not of the federal government, but rather in those of elected officials at the state and municipal levels.

This reality of the U.S. federal system will continue to be the case no matter which presidential candidate wins the election, and no matter how exciting their proposed policies may be.

States and cities make most choices on transportation infrastructure—and their choices have been regressive

The federal transportation legislation authorizing expenditures on transportation—reauthorized every five years or so, and known by such acronyms as FAST, MAP-21, and SAFETEA-LU—is typically the big story when it comes to transportation (though it may not be next year, depending on the scale and inclusiveness of a new infrastructure-focused stimulus). It’s essential for members of Congress, who can advertise it as meaningfully contributing to their respective district’s surface transportation infrastructure needs, to the tune of an average of more than $60 billion annually nationwide. It’s important in defining the overall patterns of spending, such as the share of funds to be distributed to road projects versus transit investments.

Despite this avalanche of funding from Washington, the administrators at the U.S. Department of Transportation are not the primary decisionmakers when it comes to what actual planning choices are made about new transportation projects.

The failure of the Obama Administration to make good on its proposed intercity rail plan is a case in point. After convincing Congress to devote billions of dollars to a national network, high-speed rail became a policy against which to rally among conservatives. Several states run by Republican governors simply sent back grants (free money!) the administration had allocated to them.

The result, then, was that a theoretically national plan for investment became a series of planning choices made state-by-state, each picking whether or not they wanted to engage in the overall program. One can imagine a similar outcome if a future administration makes a similar push for new rail investment.

Moreover, the U.S. government distributes transportation funds primarily by pre-determined formula to states, cities, and transportation agencies. For example, in 2020, of federal highway funds more than 90 percent is distributed directly to state governments to do, largely, what they wish.

It is true that certain programs, like the New Starts transit capital program, are more discretionary in that they give the U.S. Secretary of Transportation more oversight over what projects to advance. But, for the most part, even programs like that are largely formulaic; if you follow the rules for developing a transit project, and it scores well enough based on standardized criteria, you can get it in line on the federal list.

Those lower levels of the public sector, in fact, are those that make most of the choices related to what roads should be built or expanded, and what transit lines to promote.

Indeed, consider how different levels of government have distributed funds to transportation. Between 1956 and 2017, the federal government allocated a total of about $3.1 trillion in 2017 dollars to highways, transit, and rail investments around the country (most of which was simply sent down to lower levels of government to spend). During the same period, states and localities spent way more of their own funds: $8.9 trillion.

Since 2000 alone, the story is similar: The federal government has devoted roughly $1.2 trillion to surface transportation, while states and localities have spent $3.4 trillion raised by their own sales taxes, gas taxes, and the like.

In other words, not only does the federal government largely allocate decision making about what transportation projects to build to states and localities, while handing them control of most of the money that it raises, but also states and localities raise way more money that they use to spend on their own objectives.

U.S. governments at all levels have contributed to an infrastructure system that prioritizes road-based travel above all else. Transport Databook.

Unfortunately, neither the federal government nor lower levels of government have been particularly effective custodians of their massive expenditures on transportation—at least when it comes to achieving more sustainable and equitable outcomes. Since 1956, the federal government has devoted just 21 percent of its surface-transportation expenditures on transit or rail investments; states and localities, just 22 percent.

In other words, both have participated in the creation of an American society dependent on the private automobile for most of its function.

An infrastructure stimulus won’t be equitable or sustainable without buy-in from states and cities

If Democrats take the presidency, retain control of the House, and inherit the Senate, they are likely to push a new federal stimulus bill. It may well offer billions of dollars for improved transportation infrastructure, and if you take what Democrats have said over the past year seriously, it will include a vast expansion in support for transit, new climate-focused policies, and a renewed national rail program.

Yet the role of states, municipalities, and other public-sector entities will only be heightened if a stimulus is passed. States will be the entities deciding whether to participate in bringing improved inter-city rail to their communities. Cities will have to determine whether they want to use federal funds to renovate streetscapes to prioritize pedestrians and bicyclists. Transit agencies will have to identify new bus and rail projects that serve the most passengers.

In other words, even with new federal funds, lower levels of government are ultimately those entities making choices about what kinds of projects they want to build. And there’s little stopping states and cities from spending their own money on new highway expansions that encourage pollution, sprawl, and further exacerbate inequality. Because of the focus on what happens in Washington, however, the actions those entities take is typically less visible. Road projects continue at a reckless pace throughout much of the country despite what we know about climate change.

Fortunately, some states have made progress. California, for example, has altered its system of measuring street performance away from prioritizing moving cars. Yet localities in that state continue to push destructive road investments.

Along with a federal stimulus, then, we need action for change within lower levels of government.

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DOT Finance Infrastructure President U.S. Government

Trump’s budget hits transit hard

» In spite of previous statements in favor of a major infrastructure bill and support for transit, Donald Trump’s budget proposal would decimate the federal government’s commitment to aiding cities build new transit lines.

Any hope that Donald Trump would prioritize investment in transit infrastructure died on Wednesday night.

His administration’s budget blueprint, a rough outline of what changes he’d like to see in the federal government’s discretionary spending programs, recommends a 13 percent decline in the budget of the Department of Transportation. Much of that $2.4 billion annual reduction would come from slashing investment in transit.

The blueprint would kill new grants by the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant program. It would eliminate the popular TIGER grant program, which has supported bus rapid transit, streetcar, station, and pedestrian facilities around the country over the past few years. It would also terminate federal support for long-distance Amtrak lines, cutting service to much of the South and West.

At least based on the initial information provided, the budget would keep “formula” funds for transit in place. These support transit agency purchases of new buses and trains, and can be used for state of good repair, but not expansions.

The limitations on the Capital Investment Grant program will be extremely painful for cities and transit agencies that have pinned their hopes on investing in new rail and bus lines. This program supports what are known as New Starts, Small Starts, and Core Capacity grants, all of which provide matching dollars to fund projects such as light rail lines in Minneapolis and Seattle, subways in Los Angeles and New York, renovations of existing elevated lines in Chicago, and bus rapid transit lines in Fresno and Oakland.

Though projects that currently have what is known as a Full Funding Grant Agreement from the federal government would retain support, all others that are planned but haven’t yet signed that agreement would be cut off from federal support according to the proposal.

This change could lead to the cancellation of transit projects all around the country, from Caltrain’s electrification program, to Durham, North Carolina’s light rail line, to New York’s Second Avenue Subway Phase 2, to Indianapolis’ Red Line bus rapid transit. A full list of the projects that would be immediately affected is below.

Ironically, as a candidate, Donald Trump said “we have to spend money on mass transit… we have to spend a lot of money.” He repeatedly noted his admiration for transit in China and seemed to suggest interest in building subways and high-speed rail. Yet his budget blueprint promises nothing of the sort.

Some hope that the budget blueprint will be followed up by his proposed $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which Trump has claimed would fund transportation improvements. Yet not only is that proposal unlikely to happen, even if passed the way it is structured it would likely do very little for transit agencies, since it would require projects to be profitable, a condition very little transit can meet.

The net effect of the budget—going beyond just the Department of Transportation—is a massive slashing of support for cities, even as support for suburbs is maintained. While new transit projects would be eliminated from federal funding, the highway formula funds, which support new highway construction, would be retained. The Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects grant program, which primarily goes to expanding federal roads, would be continued at $900 million a year.

Meanwhile, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s programs supporting low-income neighborhoods and families, including Community Development Block Grants, HOME, and Choice Neighborhoods, would be eliminated entirely. Killing these programs would immediately create holes in city budgets, increase homelessness, and reduce their ability to provide social services. At the same time, programs benefiting wealthy homeowners, such as the mortgage interest tax deduction, would be preserved. The Administration, of course, is also planning to propose massively regressive tax reductions.

That sucking sound you hear is the Trump Administration throwing the economic weight of the government toward wealthy suburbs and individuals and away from cities and the poor.* This is social engineering by the feds—just for the benefit of people who don’t need help.

Of course, the president’s blueprint is just a concept. Further details will be released in the coming weeks and, more importantly, Congress will ultimately make any final decisions about what gets funded and what doesn’t. President Obama, notably, proposed budgets virtually every year that would increase support for transit investment. Yet these budgets were largely ignored by a Congress that had set its own priorities.

Though controlled by the Republican Party, there are reasons to believe that the budget the national legislature eventually passes won’t be as austerity-driven toward transit investment as this proposal is. It’s hard to envision legislators—especially senators—being willing to tell their constituents that their long-planned transit projects will simply get no federal support. Will Arizona’s Republican representatives really be okay with cutting federal support for projects in Flagstaff, Phoenix, and Tempe? Will Florida’s GOP representatives support elimination of support for projects in Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Orlando, and St. Petersburg? I’m skeptical.

Nevertheless, the threat is real. The U.S. House came close to defunding federal support transit entirely half a decade ago, and it may attempt to do so again. With little hope in the immediate term for an infrastructure bill of any sort, there are only dark skies ahead for our cities and their transit agencies.

* Rural areas, it should be noted, wouldn’t be helped much by this budget either.

Image at top: Caltrain’s proposed electrification program.

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Congress DOT Finance Infrastructure President

At long last, a transportation budget that pays for itself—and recognizes the climate

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» One last proposal from President Obama stakes a big claim in favor of improved public transportation instead of highway infrastructure, but given the Congressional environment, hopes for passage are slim.

If Congress’ hostility to President Barack Obama hadn’t already been apparent, the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia certainly pulled back the curtains. Suffice it to say that the administration has very little hope of making significant policy change over the next year.

The administration has taken this opportunity to emphasize the importance transportation plays in contributing to climate change.

Nonetheless, the Administration revealed its big budget proposal last week, and with it a major plan for increased investment in surface transportation. Unlike the FAST five-year bill passed in December by Congress, Obama’s budget would substantially increase funding for transportation infrastructure over the current levels.

As the following chart shows, while budget outlays for highways, transit (Federal Transit Administration), and railroads (Federal Railroad Administration) have remained roughly flat since 2010, Obama proposed major increases for FY 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016* that matched funding or were even higher than the amount dedicated to these types of infrastructure in 2009, during the economic stimulus.

Obama’s budget this year does the same, increasing funding quite substantially for transportation. But what makes the 2017 recommendation so different from those of previous years is that it proposes no net boost in highway infrastructure even as it proposes dramatically expanding funding for alternatives. The Federal Transit Administration would receive about $20 billion next year, compared to $11.8 billion in 2016, with larger formula and capital grants being joined by a “Rapid-Growth Area Transit Program” designed specifically for bus rapid transit in sprawling cities. The Federal Railroad Administration would receive about $6.3 billion, compared to $1.7 billion this year, renewing President Obama’s call for a better intercity rail network.

Budgets-Over-Time

This is a remarkable focus on transit that diverges from previous Obama budgets, which emphasized transportation investment as an example of a way for everyone to win. In this budget, highways definitively would not—at least to the degree they normally do.

What’s exciting is that the administration has taken this opportunity to recognize the importance transportation plays in contributing to climate change. Rather than simply reinforcing norms about what types of transportation get funding, the budget accepts that increasing spending on highways doesn’t do the environment much good. “To address the challenges of the 21st Century,” the budget notes, “the Nation needs a transportation system that reduces reliance on oil, cuts carbon pollution, and strengthens our resilience to the impacts of climate change.”

It does so by reducing the ratio of highway to transit investments from about four to one to two to one.

Major investments identified in the budget include not only the large increases in formula and capital construction funding for the agencies noted above, but also billions in additional funding for climate-sensitive solutions to be implemented by metropolitan areas and states. $6 billion would be distributed to regions focused on transportation and land use efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; $1.5 billion would go to competitive grants for transit-oriented development; $1.7 billion would go to states whose transportation plans specifically mitigate air pollution; and $750 million would go to bolster climate resilience.

This is an amazing commitment to a cleaner transportation system, the likes of which no sitting president has ever proposed. It is also so different from actual Congressional appropriations to transportation, which continue to be heavily focused on increasing highway construction.

Also unlike the bill passed by the U.S. Congress, the Obama budget would actually pay for itself using transportation user fees—a first for this administration. A $10.25-per-barrel oil tax phased in over five years would, in effect, add $0.238 per gallon in new federal taxes on top of the $0.184 Americans already pay per gallon. It’s an appropriate measure that specifically taxes the major cause of transportation-related carbon emissions.

If this proposal had come earlier in the administration and the president had lobbied hard for it, there would be more to say about its prospects. But with a Congress that hasn’t increased the gas tax since 1993, despite the dramatic shortfalls in revenue that have occurred in the years since, it and the expenditures associated with it won’t happen, at least this year.

New transit projects receive a boost

As a complement to the 2017 budget, the Federal Transit Administration released its proposed funding recommendations for major new public transportation projects. The capital investments include not only the major projects that already have what are referred to as “full funding grant agreements”—including rail systems such as the first phase of Los Angeles’ Westside subway extension and Honolulu’s elevated line—but also future projects that the executive branch has endorsed for federal support.

Projects selected for funding include the second phase of L.A.’s subway; San Diego’s Mid-Coast Corridor; a streetcar line in Santa Ana; Maryland’s Purple Line light rail; Minneapolis’ Green Line light rail extension; TEX Rail between Fort Worth and DFW airport; and a northern extension of Seattle’s light rail. The project list also includes 14 other projects that are either renovations of existing lines or smaller projects, primarily BRT. They can all be mapped using Transit Explorer.

In spite of joyous news articles and press releases from cities around the country hailing a federal commitment to funding their relevant projects, the list of investments proposed by the FTA is far longer than will likely be funded. Whereas the 2016 budget for major transit capital expenditures was $2.2 billion, this list includes federal commitments for the $3.5 billion corresponding to the increase in funding the president is proposing for transportation overall—in other words, far more than Congress is likely to approve.

Take this list of federal commitments with a grain of salt: Many of these projects are not going to be approved for support this year.

What does this budget suggest about the future?

The administration’s on-and-off plans for big transportation investments have become something of a joke in policy circles; while exciting for those with active imaginations, this year’s budget, like those of previous years, isn’t much to write home about because it won’t happen. Nonetheless, the Obama Administration is offering one way to actually fund an increased investment in the American transportation system, and it wouldn’t be hard for his successor to adopt these ideas and offer them up as his or her own. Assuming a more willing Congress, these proposals could provide a framework for a new way of thinking about federal transportation spending that is more respectful of the climate and less focused on highway building.

A willing successor, though, would probably have to be one of the two Democrats in the presidential race, both of whom have supported new transportation investments and claim to care deeply about the climate. GOP candidate and Florida Senator Marco Rubio has proposed cutting the federal gas tax by 80 percent and eliminating transit funding; Ohio Governor John Kasich has a similar plan; Texas Senator Ted Cruz wants to eliminate federal New Starts funding; as governor, Jeb Bush destroyed a Florida high-speed rail plan. Donald Trump has made infrastructure investment, including in transit, one of his campaign’s slogans, but he, like all of the rest, seems to believe climate issues are irrelevant.

No matter what, the next president won’t have it easy: Cities and states are desperate for new transportation funding and will continue to ask the Congress to devote more to highways and transit. And mounting evidence of coming economic malaise suggests that new government stimulus of some sort may, in the end, be an important component of a future recovery plan. Perhaps Obama’s last budget will set the tone for something even better.

* To be clear, the administration’s first budget was for FY 2010, since President Obama entered office in January 2009. The stimulus was attributed to FY 2009.

Photo at top: University Link light rail under construction in Seattle, from Flickr user SoundTransit (cc).

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Congress DOT

An Interview with Secretary Foxx

» Foxx reiterates the Obama Administration’s demand for more transportation funding, but fails to commit to a new funding source outside of business tax reform. He also is non-committal on reforms to the Federal Railroad Administration’s rules for commuter rail systems.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to chat with Anthony Foxx, who became the U.S. Secretary of Transportation last year and was previously mayor of Charlotte. I wrote an article on the interview’s major focus points on the website of my employer, Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council. The transcript of the full interview is posted at the bottom of this post.

In addition to the conclusions I noted on MPC’s site (and please read those; they are relevant to the discussion here), I want to note a few points about the interview that reflect my personal sense of the administration’s progress on moving forward with a new transportation bill.

It was evident in Secretary Foxx’s responses that he remains committed to the Obama Administration’s push to increase funding for transportation. Of course, the Obama Administration has been promoting increased funding for transportation since 2009, beginning with the stimulus (which roughly doubled federal expenditures for transportation for a short period), and continuing with a number of proposals over the years, each of which promoted the idea of a huge infusion of funds for transportation but which ultimately produced little change. From that perspective, Secretary Foxx’s determination to pass a new four-year, $302 billion program for infrastructure (a plan that would increase expenditures by roughly 50%) seems rather unlikely to result in much of anything.

This is particularly true in light of Senator Barbara Boxer’s proposal to simply extend the funding levels provided for in MAP-21, which themselves were little changed from the previous level of spending. At the heart of the problem, as we all know, is that the transportation user fee model (premised on fuel tax revenues) has collapsed and no one is willing to do much of anything about it. It’s not Secretary Foxx’s fault, but the Obama Administration’s decision to propose funding transportation by using “business tax reform,” which is essentially premised on one-time repatriation of foreign assets, is a half-empty call for change, neither likely to pass Congress nor a long-term solution. I’m skeptical. It’s not that the Administration has done anything terribly wrong, but there certainly has not been much courage coming out of the White House on this issue.

No one with particularly significant power is willing to simply say, “I will increase the gas tax,” or “I will institute a vehicle-miles traveled fee.” It’s not an easy demand, certainly, but it is a necessary one if we want to move forward with more funding for our road and transit systems.

In this context, it is frustrating to watch Secretary Foxx, like Secretary Ray LaHood before him, extol the values of high-speed rail (I confess I hold them dear as well), without making any progress in actually paying for it. Foxx pointed to Florida and Texas as models of interest in high-speed rail even in relatively conservative states — a fair point — but he failed to note that those states are hoping that the private sector will chip in for most or all of the cost of those lines. Certainly conservatives will support transportation investments that are fully paid for by someone else, but what happens when the Florida or Texas projects require public subsidy? Will they face the same resistance as has California’s heavily contested project has?

On the other hand, what other options does the Administration have in the face of a recalcitrant House of Representatives?

Nevertheless, Secretary Foxx’s answers about the Department of Transportation’s willingness to expand the possibility of local funding options were positive. States and cities should be able to toll their local highways if they so desire, but right now they’re stymied by federal regulations that make tolling impossible on most Interstate highways. His willingness to consider Transportation for America’s new policy proposal that would encourage local and state competition in awarding transportation funding is potentially exciting.

In addition, where the executive branch of the federal government may have an easier time producing positive results is in the implementation of regulatory changes within agencies of the Department of Transportation. One issue that has been of particular concern to those interested in improving American rail service has been the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) rules about train weight and strength, which effectively make lighter, more efficient European and Asian trains impossible in the U.S. Stephen Smith noted last year in Next City that the FRA was considering changes to these rules by 2015, when positive train control (PTC) is supposed to be implemented.

Secretary Foxx, however, was far less direct on the issue than this change would imply, noting that “Whether that issue or how that issue comes up in the context of that is still an open question, but we’ll take a look at any issues put out there.” It’s hard to know based on that whether the Department of Transportation or the Obama Administration in general will take these issues seriously in the coming months, but the issue is important, and we can only hope they’ll notice.

—————–

Full interview transcript follows below

Continue reading “An Interview with Secretary Foxx”
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Commuter Rail Congress DOT Finance High-Speed Rail Intercity Rail President

The Administration Refreshes Its Push for a Major Infusion of Funds into the National Rail Program

» The Obama Administration hopes to invest almost $40 billion in new and improved passenger rail infrastructure over the next five years. Good luck getting that through Congress.

It’s an annual spectacle. The President releases his budget. The budget proposes a huge expansion in spending on surface transportation, particularly in high-speed rail. Administration figures testify on Capitol Hill, hoping to raise the specter of infrastructure failure if nothing is done. The Congress responds lackadaisically, with Democrats arguing that something should be done and Republicans doing everything they can to prevent a cent more from being spent, and ultimately no one agrees to much of anything other than a repetition of the past year’s mediocre investments.

Will things be different this year?

The question is particularly relevant because the U.S. Government’s rail investment program — its authorization for allocating funds to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will expire this year. Legislation supporting the FRA, as well as Amtrak, the national passenger rail corporation, and improvements to freight rail, is necessary to ensure continuity of funding. Previous bills have authorized funding over five-year increments. In effect, the bills set out how much Congress expects to expend over the next few years, and allows the House and Senate to avoid debating the issue for years at a time.

The Obama Administration has responded to situation by proposing a massive infusion of funds for passenger rail and the creation of a “National High-Performance Rail System.”

Total funding for rail activity, both for operating funds and capital projects, would increase from about $1.8 billion in 2013 to more than $6.5 billion in fiscal year 2014. Over the course of five years, about $40 billion would be devoted to rail improvement across the country, a massive expansion paid for with funds “saved” from ending military operations overseas. This would be headlined by a $5 billion “jump-start” stimulus for rail, part of a $50 billion infrastructure package the Administration is hoping Congress will pay attention to.

In many ways, the Administration’s bill is similar to past attempts at legislating major increases in funding for rail. In 2011, for instance, the government promoted a $53 billion plan to “win the future” with rail lines funded across the country. Yet Congresspeople reacted to the proposal with little interest — and members didn’t have to, because there was no authorization bill expiring. That’s what makes this year different.

The Administration’s proposal practically boils with ambition. Grants for new and improved rail lines would be heavily oriented (70 to 85%) towards “core express” alignments, which include only corridors where electric trains operating hourly at speeds of 125 mph and above run on their own, dedicated tracks. This says a lot about the Administration’s interest in focusing its energies on the “true” high-speed corridors, which at this time are only in development for California and the Northeast.

Grants in the proposal’s “rail service improvement program” would add up to $3.66 billion in the first year of activity but grow significantly over the course of five years, eventually reaching more than $6 billion a year. This would provide a substantial base of funds for serious rail projects.

But the initial allocations of funds would also ensure support for current rail lines. $2.7 billion in the first year of allocations would be dedicated to operating subsidies and projects that bring the Northeast Corridor to a state of good repair by 2025. Operating funds for Amtrak’s long-distance trains would be maintained, but those for state-supported (short-corridor) train lines would be eliminated after five years, in line with the existing law, to be replaced by profitable operations or more state support (or elimination). Amtrak’s fleet, which is on average 27.7 years old, would be upgraded, particularly in the Northeast, by 2018.

Some funding would also be provided for expanding freight capacity, reducing congestion (such as in the Chicago area), implementing Positive Train Control (which theoretically prevents trains from running into one another), and expanding access for the disabled. Much of the support would be dedicated to corridors owned by private freight rail companies.

All of the funds the Administration has proposed for an expansion of passenger rail service would do wonders for the nation’s train network. Yet even $40 billion committed over the next five years would hardly make a dent in the cost of the California High-Speed Rail project ($70-100 billion) and a new, high-speed Northeast Corridor ($150-200 billion). If the government committed similar funds over the course of five-year increments into the future, it would take a minimum of 27.5 years to complete these projects alone, with no spending on anything else. That’s 2041 before there’s true high-speed service on both coasts — at the earliest!

It’s true, of course, that any investment in new rail service will require financial and planning aid from local stakeholders, and these projects could be completed far more quickly if they were infused with local and state funds (as is the case in California).

Between Boston and Washington, the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission (NEC Commission) is tasked with developing a framework for allocating costs along the corridor. As part of that program, it has created a document that demonstrates the rail line’s critical needs and it will be looking to help Amtrak and the states better coordinate their contributions to the line.

If upgrades are going to be made to the line, it will be necessary to ensure that states along the corridor all benefit, and that they all contribute. Determining the best way for them to do that is an incredibly important task that has yet to be fully laid out. Should New Jersey, for instance, aid Amtrak in paying for a new line, if that clears capacity for New Jersey Transit’s commuter rail division? Should Delaware contribute to the cost of a new corridor if no fast trains stop in the state? How much should the states and cities along the line pay to run local trains down the intercity tracks? Before any serious aid is provided to the Northeast, there must be an agreed-upon system for Northeastern stakeholders to answer these questions.

If the FRA reauthorization provided increasing funds to a better managed railroad, assuming increasing funding from other sources (presumably including private players), there is reason to think that Obama’s program could provide substantial improvements to the nation’s foremost passenger rail corridor.

Ultimately, however, the question of whether the Administration’s proposal has any technical merit is irrelevant when there is no political backing for an increase in appropriations for rail service in the United States.

The White House’s claim that its reauthorization would be “paid for” is, quite frankly, a specious argument. To pay for infrastructure, the government wants to use money (“savings generated by capping Overseas Contingency Operations”) that it “would have spent” on foreign wars but that is no longer necessary because the country is pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet when the government is operating with a massive deficit, it’s hard to argue that that money is being shifted from one government use to another. It’s debt, pure and simple.

There are plenty of reasons to argue about the benefits of deficit spending, particularly in the midst of the continued recession, but let’s at least be honest about where the money is coming from.

There was an alternative — the Administration could have proposed a new source of revenue to pay for the program, such as an expansion in the fuel tax or the creation of a vehicle-miles travelled fee. That’s needed all sorts of transportation: The Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the Transportation Trust Fund (sourced from fuel taxes) will have a more than $90 billion shortfall by 2023 (and be operating in a deficit by 2015), imperiling any new spending on highways or urban transit.

Yet the Obama White House has shown itself hostile to any tax increase program that would affect lower- and middle-class families, and the Congress has certainly not pushed back with its own proposals. Thus the use of money “that would have” been spent on the wars to pay for the new transportation proposals. With little interest in increasing deficit spending, unfortunately, that proposal, too, is likely to go nowhere. The status quo will be reinforced.

This is a particularly sad state of affairs because the need is there, particularly in the Northeast. The FRA is currently developing a rail investment plan for the Corridor through a public consultation process, and a preliminary alternatives report was released this month, indicating a series of at least possible improvements. Amtrak, too, is desperately pushing for funds, arguing in recent weeks that the Corridor is suffering from an “investment crisis.”

Moreover, many Republicans in Congress have argued repeatedly that they are interested in funding improved rail service on the Northeast Corridor. Former House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chair John Mica (R-FL) said in 2011 that “We have to redirect our efforts to having at least one success in high-speed rail in the nation. And that high-speed rail success needs to be here in the Northeast Corridor.” Though he didn’t propose any specific way to pay for those improvements, his interest is indicative of the GOP’s willingness to compromise. (And indeed, current Committee Chair Bill Shuster also has been a supporter of Amtrak.)

Perhaps the Administration’s policies should recognize this? On the other hand, the government clearly has no interest in shutting out three-fourths of the nation from rail grants.

Anthony Foxx, who will be nominated as the government’s next Secretary of the Department of Transportation this week, has proven to be a strong supporter of rail transportation in his position as mayor of Charlotte. But his ability to promote the Administration’s rail reauthorization bill has yet to be proven. Current DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, formerly a Republican Congressman from rural Illinois, has failed to produce bipartisan consensus in favor of more transportation investment over the past four years. How can Mr. Foxx, a strong urban Democrat, do so? The House remains controlled by the GOP and the Senate may shift in that direction after next year’s midterms.

There’s a lot to be excited about the rail reauthorization bill the Administration has proposed, but there is more to be skeptical of. We have a long way to go before there is solid support in Washington for more spending on rail transportation.