Category: Transportation

Community Meeting on the Proposed Outer Beltway

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

Join Us for a Community Meeting

VDOT has been moving ahead with plans to build a new “Outer Beltway” — an expensive road project that would cut through Loudoun and Prince William (east of Rt. 15, but west of Rt. 28).

The road would open up new land to development, cut through Manassas Battlefield National Park, and has the potential to make traffic on east-west roads, like Rt. 50 and Rt.66, even worse. Recent VDOT presentations confirm that the road is being designed to carry freight and cargo at 65+ mph — splitting neighborhoods from schools — and increasing sound and air pollution.

VDOT held public information sessions the week before Christmas. If you weren’t able to attend, or want to know more about what is happening, join us at this meeting.

  • Informational Materials – 7:00pm
  • Presentations – starting at 7:20pm
  • Q & A discussion

This meeting is co-hosted by the Piedmont Environmental Council and Aldie Heritage Association.

D.C. Considering Lifting Mandatory Parking Minimums

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

The District of Columbia’s Office of Planning is considering a proposal to potentially reduce the number of available parking spaces in some neighborhoods as new development attracts more residents and jobs. If successful, it will mark the first major change to the city’s zoning code since it was first adopted in 1958.

It’s part of a growing city attempt to reduce congestion by offering its residents alternatives to the automobile – from bikes to buses to making walking more attractive.

Planning officials may submit to the zoning commission this spring a proposal to eliminate the mandatory parking space minimums required in new development in transit-rich corridors and in downtown Washington.  The idea squares with the vision of making the district less car-dependent and would let developers decide how many parking spaces are necessary based on market demand.  However, opponents say the plan denies the reality that roughly 70 percent of Washington-area commuters drive and removing off-street parking requirements in apartment and office buildings would force motorists to circle city blocks looking for scarce spaces.

“This is a very dangerous proposal.  We think it threatens the future of Washington, D.C.,” says Lon Anderson, the chief spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, which represents motorists and advocates road construction as a solution for traffic congestion.

A city where a car isn’t a necessity

Thirty-nine percent of D.C. households are car-free. In some neighborhoods with access to public transit, more than 80 percent of households are car-free.  Some recent developments wound up building too much parking to adhere to the mandatory minimums, including the D.C. USA shopping center in Columbia Heights, which is right next to a Metro station and busy bus corridor.

“The parking garage there is probably as twice as big as it needs to be, and the second level is basically not used so the city has had to scramble to find another use for it,” says Cheryl Cort, the policy director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth and advocate of the zoning change.

“Rather than having the government tell the private sector how many parking spaces to build, we think it’s better for the developer to figure out how it best wants to market those units,” Cort added.

Developers favor eliminating the mandatory parking minimums because the construction of parking garages, especially underground, is enormously expensive.  Each underground space adds $40,000 to $70,000 to a project’s cost, according to Harriet Tregoning, the director of D.C.’s Office of Planning, who is working on the overhaul of D.C.’s zoning code. The code was last updated in 1958 when planners assumed the automobile would remain the mainstay of individual transportation.

“No matter how much mandatory parking we require in new buildings, if the landlord is going to charge you $200 per month to park in the building and the city is going to let you park on the street for $35 per year, you may very well decide… to park on the street,” Tregoning says. “Many developers are finding they have parking that they can’t get rid of, that they don’t know what to do with.  That’s really a stranded asset.”

Parking-free building coming to Tenleytown

On the corner of Wisconsin Avenue NW and Brandywine Street NW stands what used to be a billiards hall. The property, just a block from the Tenleytown Metro station, has been an eyesore for years. Douglas Development is expected to redevelop the site this year, turning it into a mixed-use retail and residential space with 40 apartment units and no on-site parking.

“When the Zoning Commission looked at this site and DDOT did some analysis, they found a lot of availability of both on-street parking and off-street parking.  There are actually hundreds of parking spaces around this Metro station that go dark at night,” says Cheryl Cort, whose group contends the construction of parking spaces drives up housing costs an average 12.5 percent per unit. If developers can’t find a market for those parking spaces, they pass the costs onto tenants.

Douglas Development, which declined to comment on this story, received an exemption from the zoning commission to avoid the parking minimum at the Tenleytown property. Situated close to Metro and planning to market the apartments to car-free residents, the developers escaped having to build 20 spaces under the current regulations in the zone (C-2-A).

Douglas’s plan may look sensible given the conditions in the neighborhood, but AAA’s Anderson says it will cause problems.

“Are you going to have any visitors who might drive there to visit you?  How about your mom and dad, are they going to be coming in? Do they live locally or are they going to be driving in? If so, where are they going to park?” says Anderson, who says the past three years have seen 16,000 new car registrations in Washington.

Fewer cars in D.C.’s future?

In its fight against the parking policy change, AAA is being joined by community activists who claim their neighborhoods will be clogged by drivers looking for parking. Sue Hemberger, a 28-year district resident who does not own a car, says Tregoning’s proposal is too harsh. In her view, district officials are making car ownership a hassle.

“What I see us doing in the name of transit-oriented development is pushing people who won’t forgo car ownership off the edge of the transit grid,” Hemberger says. “I’m worried about the future of certain neighborhoods and I’m worried about the future of downtown.”

Anderson says D.C. is waging a “war on cars,” but Tregoning says changes to zoning regulations are not designed to make motorists’ lives miserable.  On the contrary, the planning director anticipates the number of drivers in the district will grow but they will have enough options to do away with car ownership, like the car sharing services of Zipcar and Car2Go.

“How does your walking, biking, or taking transit affect his ability to drive, accept to make it easier?” Tregoning says in response to Anderson. “The national average household spends 19 percent of income on transportation. In the district, in areas well-served by transit, our number is more like 9 percent of household income. So we happen to think lots of choices are a good thing.”

In 2012 the city of Portland, Oregon, commissioned a study to look at the relationship between car ownership and new development, after apartment construction with little to no on-site parking in the city’s inner neighborhoods raised concerns about the potential for on-street parking congestion.

The study found “that 64 percent of residents are getting to work via a non-single-occupant vehicle. Almost a third (28 percent) of those surveyed belong to car-free households; however, cars are still the preferred mode of travel for many of the survey respondents.”

About two-thirds of the vehicle owners surveyed in Portland’s inner neighborhoods “park on the street without a permit and have to walk less than two minutes to reach their place of residence, and they spend only five minutes or less searching for a parking spot,” the study found.

To Hemberger, the Portland study’s key finding is that people don’t give up car ownership just because they commute to work via public transit.  In a city like Washington, Hemberger says, there will not be enough street spot to accommodate new, car-owning residents.

Decision could come this spring

The Office of Planning will submit the proposed removal of parking minimums to the Zoning Commission later this month or early April, where it will go through the public process again before a final decision is made.

“We are a really unique city because we have an amazing number of transportation choices. Our citizens end up paying a lot less for transportation than the rest of the region,” Tregoning says. “I don’t understand why that would be considered a war on cars to try to give people choices, the very choices that actually take automobiles off the road to make it easier to park, to make it easier to drive with less congestion.”

Photo courtesy of vpickering on Flickr

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Morning Read: Big Week for Maryland Legislature

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

It’s a busy week for the Maryland legislature.

On Monday, Gov. Martin O’Malley introduced his own transportation funding plan, which would generate an estimated $833 million over five years in new funding for transportation through a 2-percent sales tax on gasoline.

The sales tax would increase to 4 percent in 2014 and the current excise tax on a gallon of gas would decrease by 5 cents and then be indexed to inflation.

The Senate has also been debating O’Malley-backed legislation to repeal the death penalty in the state. On Monday night, senators in support of the bill rejected eight amendments that would create exceptions under which convicted killers could still be executed.

Debate will resume Tuesday morning and a final Senate vote could come this afternoon.

The fate of another flagship legislation this session — gun control — will be shaped this week. The Senate already passed its version of the bill to tighten gun laws and ban assault weapons and the House committees are expected to put their versions on the House floor this week.

IN OTHER NEWS:

* Another day, another story about Virginia Lt. Gov Bill Bolling flirting with an independent gubernatorial bid. (Politico)

* A Washington City Paper writer has been named the new Washington Post ombudsman… kind of. (Washington City Paper)

* Former D.C. Councilman Kwame Brown leads a bus of D.C. students every year to attend a college fair in North Carolina. He wanted to keep the tradition alive this year, but a judge denied him permission to loosen his home-detention conditions for 24 hours. (Washington Post)

* Mayor Vincent Gray wants to use some of the District’s surplus money to delay welfare cuts by six months to families who have been receiving public assistance for more than five years. This could impact up to 7,500 families. (Washington Examiner)

* A dozen people from the D.C. area made Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s billionaires. (Washington Business Journal)

* Facing a $1 million funding cut and a growing elderly population, Maryland’s Department of Aging is focusing on providing more at-home services to keep people out of costly nursing homes. (Maryland Reporter)

* Something maybe, potentially fishy was revealed when Washington City Paper investigated why a fired staffer for Councilmember Anita Bonds had filed a complaint with the Board of Ethics over issues involving requests for her to work on Bonds’ campaign. (Washington City Paper)

* A federal judge ruled that the EPA had overstepped its bounds in trying to regulate storm water in Northern Virginia — a victory for AG Ken Cuccinelli, who said that it would have cost the state and Fairfax County more than $300 million. (Washington Times)

* A new audit of the Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp — the government-funded nonprofit from which former Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. admitted to stealing $350,000 — unsurprisingly reveals that there were major flaws in how the trust monitored its finances. (Washington Examiner)

* The Virginia transportation plan earned high marks from Moody’s bond rating firm, which called the plan a “credit-positive” for the state. (Washington Post)

* With a new report, the Coalition for Smarter Growth wants to engage residents in a campaign to win a new District transit vision and the funding to implement it. (Greater Greater Washington)

* Gov. McDonnell issued an executive order Monday to reconstitute a commission that will examine the impacts of the sequester defense cuts on Virginia and recommend the best course of action in light of these cuts. (Alexandria News)

Photo courtesy of Alex Wong/Getty Images

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Coalition For Smarter Growth Report Calls For A Next Generation Of Transit

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

We don’t need a ranking to know our traffic is bad.  What the headlines miss is the crucial role our Metro and our other transit investments have played in preventing gridlock, in offering us an effective alternative to sitting in traffic, and in fueling an economic boom that has revitalized our city and transit-oriented suburbs.

Download the report – Principles for a Next Generation of Transit (Fact Sheet) – Benefits of Transit to the Region (Fact Sheet)

“Fifty years ago, visionary leaders conceived, planned and built Metro, and reshaped the Washington, D.C. region. The first order of business is to complete the reinvestment and full rehabilitation of this system that is so critical for our regional economy. We are also calling today for a new vision for a new generation — for a Next Generation of Transit investments and the leadership to make it happen,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “We believe our region’s leadership is ready for the challenge.”

“In the Region Forward regional compact, regional leaders have made transit-oriented development the framework for our region’s growth, but we now need to put the “T into our TOD,” said Schwartz.

Last week, centerpieces of the State of the County addresses by Fairfax Chairman Sharon Bulova and Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett were their calls for transit-oriented revitalization and new transit investments  Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker has called transit-oriented development and the Purple Line top priorities, and D.C., Arlington and Alexandria are national leaders in implementing TOD.

Today’s Coalition report, Thinking Big, Planning Smart:  A Primer for Greater Washington’s Next Generation of Transit, is both a call to action and the first compilation of the region’s many transit and transportation plans. The report summarizes the many benefits of transit to the Washington D.C. region. It features and compares the metrics for six major transit projects and/or systems that are under construction or reasonably far along in planning, including the Silver Line, Purple Line, D.C. Streetcar, Arlington Streetcar, Alexandria Bus Rapid Transit and Montgomery Rapid Transit System.

“While we are encouraged by the many new transit systems being proposed, we are very concerned that we don’t have a plan to interconnect the systems and to ensure operational coordination including common fare card use and real time information, not to mention who should operate each system,” said Cheryl Cort, Policy Director for the Coalition. “We found that the studies for these systems don’t even share a common set of performance measurements and had to crunch the numbers to do our own comparative analysis.”

“This report is a baseline and we hope a launching point for regional dialogue and collaboration to create a plan for a next generation of transit network for our region, said Schwartz. “We’d like to see an official process that brings together elected officials, transit planners, and top national consultants, and fully engages the community.”

Cheryl Cort concluded:  “The Coalition recommends that WMATA (Metro) planning staff provide the lead technical support for the study in accordance with the WMATA compact, and that a joint WMATA/COG committee of elected officials be convened to oversee the effort. Our goal is for the region to complete that plan within the next two years, while launching a concurrent effort to identify and dedicate significantly more funding to our public transportation needs.” The Coalition included a recommended set of principles that justify and should guide the development of the Next Generation of Transit vision.

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading nonprofit organization addressing where and how the Washington region grows, partnering with communities in planning for the future, and offering solutions to the interconnected challenges of housing, transportation, energy and the environment. We ensure that transportation and development decisions accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving our natural and historic areas.

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Pageland Lane residents see renewal of old fight against Bi-County Parkway in Pr. William

Posted on by Ted Van Houten


Page Snyder, a longtime resident of Pageland Lane across from the Manassas Battlefield, points to where a proposed four-lane highway would cut through swaths of historic rural farmland. (Jeremy Borden – The Washington Post)

Legendary activist Annie Snyder, before she died in 2002, told her daughter that a road she battled against for decades would never come to fruition.

Snyder spent her life advocating for the preservation of rural lands, particularly those around the Civil War battlefields in Manassas near her home. She doubted that those who wanted to build a 10-mile Bi-County Parkway — which would skirt the battlefield and sit near the front of the Snyders’ family farm — would ever get the funds for such a controversial project, which would run from I-66 in Prince William County to Route 50 in Loudoun County.

The north-south route, supporters say, would create jobs and drive area economic development, ease congestion and provide a key connection between two rapidly growing counties. Detractors, including conservationists and smart growth advocates, say the road would be a boon to rural area land speculators, open up a rural area to development, and bring even more congestion that would result from a large Northern Virginia highway.

It would skirt hallowed Civil War ground, and resistant neighbors bristle at the thought of a four-lane highway competing with what is now bucolic spareness in their front yards.

Page Snyder, Annie Snyder’s daughter, now finds herself ensnared yet again in the fight, and she says she feels that the scales are tipped well in favor of the road. The road’s supporters — namely the administration of Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) — have little in their way of seeing the road through, she said.

Still, she’s not resigned. “We’ve won many lost causes that nobody thought we could win,” Snyder said. Since the 1960s, a shopping mall, large cemetery and dirt bike track, among others, have been proposed for nearby lands and were defeated.

While the road project has been with planning boards since the 1980s, several recent events have caused Snyder and others to see Bi-County Parkway (which is often called the Tri-County Parkway because past alignments brought it through Fairfax County) as increasingly a done deal.

In May of 2011, the Commonwealth Transportation Board declared the area as part of a north-south “Corridor of Significance” that could eventually connect Dulles Airport with Interstate 95 and provide a more easily accessible cargo hub, a concept that has wide support among many conservatives and business groups across the state. The National Park Service has largely agreed to the project, and a federal review that assesses the impacts of the roads, called a “section 106” review, is well under way. Officials say they hope to have it completed and signed off on by federal agencies this summer.

Also, last week, the CTB formally adopted a minor tweak in the road’s alignment to avoid a historic property. All told, residents are preparing for the reality of the road even as they continue to fight it.

If the road is built, Pageland Lane residents want to ensure that it does not cut off their access to surrounding roads. They said language in state documents gives the impression that the neighborhood would be cut off, without access to U.S. 29 and the surrounding community. Some alignment proposals could have them getting on the parkway simply to get off to go in the opposite direction.

Those access problems would have other effects. “We have our life’s savings in [our property],” said Mary Ann Ghadban, who lives on Pageland Lane. “If we don’t have access, our property is totally devalued.”

Maria Sinner, a VDOT official who helps oversee projects in Prince William, said that VDOT has not designed or engineered the road’s specifics yet. She said that the state is doing what it can to assure that Pageland Lane residents maintain access to U.S. 29 and the surrounding community.

“We’re going to do anything possible to continue to provide them access,” Sinner said.

There are still key hurdles to the parkway’s construction, even as the McDonnell administration sees the road as a “high priority,” said Sinner. The biggest is the road’s price tag: $300 million. A new funding plan for Virginia transportation means that some long-delayed projects should move forward, but there are competing needs, Sinner said.

“The administration has a high priority on this, but we know they don’t have $300 million right off the bat,” she said. So far, $5 million has been allocated for design work, and officials hope to get about another $15 million for studies this June, subject to a decision by the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the governing body that controls VDOT.

That board is lead by its chairman, Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton, a former Prince William supervisor, who has long advocated for the road.

“It is our desire to fund and build it as soon as practical,” Connaughton said in an e-mail.

Still, residents feel that VDOT has not been straightforward with them. Del. Timothy D. Hugo (R-Fairfax), whose district includes the area, has scheduled a town hall meeting on Monday at 7 p.m. at Bull Run Middle School with VDOT officials to address concerns.

Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said that the north-south connection when most residents travel east-west in notorious traffic conditions is a waste of state resources. He has called the parkway the “Zombie Road” — because, he says, it’s not needed, and it never dies.

The road, officials say, was formally approved in 2005 and should rightfully be on its way toward construction.

Photo courtesy of Washington Post

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CSG Releases New Report, “THINKING BIG PLANNING SMART,” Calling for Next Generation of Transit

CSG Releases New Report, “THINKING BIG PLANNING SMART,” Calling for Next Generation of Transit

Posted on by acustis

We don’t need a ranking to know our traffic is bad. What the headlines miss is the crucial role our Metro and our other transit investments have played in preventing gridlock, in offering us an effective alternative to sitting in traffic, and in fueling an economic boom that has revitalized our city and transit-oriented suburbs. “Fifty years ago, visionary leaders conceived, planned and built Metro, and reshaped the Washington, D.C. region. The first order of business is to complete the reinvestment and full rehabilitation of this system that is so critical for our regional economy. We are also calling today for a new vision for a new generation — for a Next Generation of Transit investments and the leadership to make it happen,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “We believe our region’s leadership is ready for the challenge.”

Don’t Get Tripped Up by TRIP! If Most Maryland Roads are in Bad Condition, Then Focus Funds on Maintenance First AND Provide Transit as an Alternative to Sitting in Traffic

Posted on by acustis

The TRIP group (“The Road Information Program”) just issued its annual report on the bad condition of state roads, featuring Maryland and other states and conveniently timed for the state General Assembly debates about transportation funding. “We agree with TRIP that Maryland’s roads and bridges are in need of repair, but TRIP’s primary recommendation has traditionally been highway expansion,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “This simply doesn’t track. Too often when we see the alarm raised about aging infrastructure, we see new funding go into capacity expansion even as the maintenance needs continue to mount.”

Virginia’s Transpo Future: Charge Drivers Less to Build More Roads

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

Congratulations are owed to Bob McDonnell. He’s scored a victory on his transportation funding plan, cementing his legacy (though infuriating conservatives, including his hand-picked successor). His achievement is being called the first bipartisan initiative to pass in Virginia in decades. And what does this great deed accomplish? Secure revenue to fuel a new era of wasteful road-building in the commonwealth of Virginia.


McDonnell’s new transportation funding plan will pay for the wasteful and unnecessary expansion of Route 460. Photo: Doug Kerr/flickr

Virginia’s state House and Senate both voted this weekend to approve McDonnell’s funding plan for transportation, despite opposition from anti-tax activists. McDonnell’s original proposal to eliminate the gas tax entirely got massaged a little bit, turning into a 3.5 percent tax on the wholesale price of gas.

His proposal to raise the sales tax survived the legislature, as did the $100 tax on alternative fuels – an idea that is somewhat less backwards now that some semblance of gas tax remains. Democrats hate it, though, and McDonnell has already signaled a vague willingness to “review” it.

The sales tax hike, however, is as backwards as ever. McDonnell is raising the sales tax 0.3 percent in most parts of the state but 6 percent in the populous Hampton Roads and northern Virginia areas. Much of the extra funds raised in those areas will go to local projects, but it still means the most urban and transit-rich areas, where most of the state’s non-drivers live, will pay more for a plan that disproportionately funds rural roads.

Drivers will pay five cents per gallon less than they did under the old gas tax, given current prices — shrinking their contribution by about 30 percent. Rather than strengthen the gas tax’s small but important incentive to drive less, McDonnell’s plan turns it the other way.

The other reason the sales tax hike won’t do the trick is that sales taxes aren’t an appropriate tool when what you need is a stable source of funding.

FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff said the same thing last month when outgoing AASHTO Director John Horsley proposed a percentage sales tax on gas instead of a flat tax. “In transit-land, sales taxes rise and fall with sufficient amplitudes here that it makes or breaks projects,” he told an audience at TRB later in the day when Horsley made his proposal. “Just because it’s a sales tax doesn’t mean that it’s stable.”

According to economists Michael Madowitz and Kevin Novan, writing in the Washington Post, California’s transportation sales tax fluctuated 13.5 percent over the past decade while the fixed gas tax fluctuated just 1.2 percent.

“Given that it is far easier to predict gas consumption than prices,” they wrote, “it is prudent to tie transportation revenue to consumption.”

The one thing that’s predictable about gasoline consumption is that it will continue to drop. People are driving less, and the cars they’re driving are using less gas. Any gas tax solution is only a temporary fix. Does this mean McDonnell is right to want to drop the gas tax altogether? Not at all. Does it mean he’s smart to look to other sources of income for transportation? Of course – though he’s still looking in the wrong place.

Worst of all, the transportation expenditures envisioned in McDonnell’s plan are heavy on sprawl-inducing highways. He touts the multimodal aspects like high-speed rail and finishing the silver line to Dulles airport. But Stewart Schwartz of the Coalition for Smarter Growth characterizes the legislation as “truly a highway bill.” Even the maintenance funds it allocates ($538 million a year) will only serve to free up construction funds for rural highway-building.

Trip Pollard of the Southern Environmental Law Center called the package “too road-heavy” and said, “Virginia has to move toward a more balanced approach that provides greater transportation choices and a cleaner, more efficient system.”

Pollard’s and Schwartz’s organizations, together with other smart-growth groups, lamented the lack of reforms required in the funding bill. “It doesn’t require wiser spending by VDOT even as it effectively allows for about $500 million a year in additional highway construction funding for VDOT,” they wrote in a statement.

In his article for Greater Greater Washington about the bill, Stewart Schwartz wrote about where the money is going:

Just last week, VDOT announced it would allocate another $869 million in federal Garvee bonds to Route 460 and the Coalfields Expressway, two of the most wasteful, unnecessary projects in the history of Virginia. Four questionable projects—Route 460 ($1.4 billion), Coalfields Expressway ($2.8 billion), Charlottesville Bypass ($240 million), and the Outer Beltway in Northern Virginia (estimated $1 billion)—total a potential $5.5 billion in misallocated spending.

Many expect that Secretary Connaughton intends to divert a substantial portion of the new statewide money to the controversial and sprawl-inducing Outer Beltway, rather than to the critical commuter corridor needs of the metro regions.

He notes that just 21 percent of the statewide funds go to transit and passenger rail in 2018.

Photo courtesy of Doug Kerr on flickr

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McDonnell pushes through landmark transpo bill – Sequester rhetoric ratchets up – W.H. warns states of cuts – Will you change your travel plans?

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

McDONNELL’S LEGISLATIVE LEGACY: To Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Saturday was a big deal. After nearly three decades of population growth, increasing gridlock and waning transportation revenues, the potential 2016 contender got done a comprehensive transportation revenue that evokes many of politics’ great compromises: No one loves it, but a majority didn’t vote against it, either. “It’s a broad, bipartisan compromise to [address] an intractable problem, that will serve Virginians well for a generation,” McDonnell said in an interview Sunday, just a few hours after his landmark bill passed. It wasn’t easy, even for him, to come around to the package that passed. But it had to be done, he explained, describing Virginia as having a “math problem” rather than a political one. “I really struggled with this early on, about the fact that as part of the final agreement, there were going to have to be some new revenues,” McDonnell said. “Reagan said, ‘Look, we have not raised the gas tax in 20 years and our infrastructure is crumbling.’ … He said the same thing I said: ‘I don’t like it, this is not my first choice, but we don’t have another solution.’ So he signed the bill.” Alex Burns and Burgess take it away: http://politi.co/VH4M47

What D.C. can learn: If McDonnell’s successful push to rejigger his state’s tax system to deliver more transportation money is any guide, the federal government needs to get out of the per-gallon gas tax game to get conservatives onboard. His state will spread new transportation revenue across the board: a reduced at-the-pump tax, new wholesale fuel fees, a larger share of sales tax revenue for transportation and a $100 annual fee on hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles. And though it doesn’t kill the state gas tax like he originally envisioned, he got a lot of what he wanted — and avoided receiving a bill he would feel compelled to veto. “I said at the beginning, we’ve got to reduce our reliance on the gas tax. Gas tax is on a long-term death spiral,” he told MT. So does this bill send a message that Virginia doesn’t expect any more revenue help from the feds? “At least in the short term, yes. They’ve got the same problem,” he said. “As long as the state or federal gas tax … is a flat cents [fee], you are going to have the same problem.” Burgess has more: http://politico.pro/15Jfknz

Want more? It’s a fairly complicated scheme, and WTOP has the conference report in legislative form: http://bit.ly/136lVc4. And Coalition for Smarter Growth has a good, simple summary: http://bit.ly/15b1nxs

LaHOOD: SEQUESTER SPOKESMAN: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been the administration’s loudest voice against the sequester, going on a media blitz in recent days to warn of long lines and fewer flights if the automatic spending cuts go through. On Sunday, LaHood went on CNN’s “State of the Union” (http://politi.co/UXXYjC), where he talked about furloughs and his job as an ambassador to his former House GOP colleagues. Right after that, the secretary hopped over to NBC’s “Meet the Press” (http://politi.co/YoNbwP), where he said that, even with less than a week to go, “there is still time to reach a compromise.”

For shame, good sir: A few big-name Republicans weren’t too happy with LaHood’s remarks on the Sunday talk shows. “Shame on Ray LaHood,” Arizona Sen. John McCain said on CNN after the secretary spoke (http://politi.co/WcvcgB). And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, after LaHood spoke on “Meet the Press”, told the president to “stop sending out your Cabinet secretaries to scare the American people.”

Fact-check one two, one two: The White House released a series of White House fact sheets Sunday evening on the sequester’s impact on all 50 states, each offering the latest version of its warnings that cuts to the FAA and TSA would have a national effect on aviation. They caution that the FAA “would be forced to undergo a funding cut of more than $600 million,” prompting the agency “to undergo an immediate retrenchment of core functions by reducing operating costs and eliminating or reducing services to various segments of the flying community.” Team Transportation takes it away: http://politico.pro/137QrCx

Prognosis negative: The Senate Democrats will try to pass a package of cuts and tax increases to avert the automatic cuts, but the outlook isn’t too positive right now. Rogers report: http://politi.co/X5gruK

Friday surprise: Before hitting the talk show circuit, LaHood swung by Friday’s White House press briefing. The secretary said the cuts could mean “calamity” for travelers and will have “a very serious impact on the transportation services that are critical to the traveling public.” At the same time, FAA put out comprehensive lists of air traffic control towers where overnight shifts could be ended (http://1.usa.gov/12Ymq80) and a separate list of control facilities that could be closed (http://1.usa.gov/X07npr). But top aviation Republicans weren’t sold. “Before jumping to the conclusion that furloughs must be implemented, the administration and the agency need to sharpen their pencils and consider all the options,” Commerce ranking member John Thune, House T&I Chairman Bill Shuster and T&I’s Aviation Chairman Frank LoBiondo said in a joint statement. Burgess and Kathryn break it down: http://politi.co/X2ygKR

Want more? Those wanting the full exchange between LaHood and White House reporters can check out everything in the transcript: http://bit.ly/ZxKLjY

MONDAY FUNDAY. Thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and early-morning TV hits. If it moves, it’s news. Do stay in touch: beverett@politico.com and asnider@politico.com. Twitter: @AdamKSnider and @BurgessEv. More news: @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Transpo.

“So don’t jump in front of my train …” http://bit.ly/UAN4yM

SEQUESTER, STATE-BY-STATE: Three states — Rhode Island, South Dakota and Vermont — avoid any of the sequester’s aviation closures or cutbacks. California, on the other hand, has 23 facilities slated for outright closure. And Texas would be hardest hit during midnight shifts, with six facilities in cities from Austin to El Paso and Fort Worth identified for overnight shutdowns. Burgess take a state-based look for Pros: http://politico.pro/XPxG1q

Get the facts from a Republican: According to some background info distributed by a GOP source, FAA could weather the storm better than the administration is suggesting. The info notes that flights are down 27 percent since 2000 and that FAA’s operations account is up nearly $3 billion from 2002 and stands at $9.7 billion right now. “Before implementing furloughs, the FAA should review their $2.7 billion in non-personnel costs, such as $500 million for consultants, and $200 million for supplies and travel,” the two-pager concludes.

Metro morsel: The subway system expects to see fewer riders and would lose some of its federal funding as part of the cuts, according to Post Metro maven Dana Hedgpeth. http://wapo.st/WfDpv8

Scrumquester: We’d like to direct you to the POLITICO podcast “The Scrum,” on everything sequester with Maggie Haberman, Alex Burns, Jonathan Allen and Kate Nocera, hosted by Alexander Trowbridge. http://politi.co/13feRcW

WANT MORE SEQUESTER WATCH? — The specter of sequestration looms, and Jonathan Allen’s Sequester Watch delivers Pro readers a daily roundup of all of the twists and turns. To continue getting emails on all things sequester, sign up here: http://politico.pro/lvfnLQ, go to “Customize Your Topics” and select “Sequester Watch.”

WHAT THE FAA IS SAYING: LaHood and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, in a letter to the major aviation groups, rounded up some of what we already knew about sequester but added a few more details that the secretary talked about at the White House. “We are aware that these service reductions will adversely affect commercial, corporate and general aviation operations,” they wrote. Read the letter: http://1.usa.gov/YMiCQb

LOTS OF REACTIONS: Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller called the sequester cuts “reckless” and said that “everyone who travels for business or pleasure will be adversely affected.” NATCA President Paul Rinaldi cautioned that the cuts “may not be reversed,” adding that “closing air traffic control towers means the system will be even more compromised than anticipated.” Regional Airline Association President Roger Cohen said the “government is playing an irresponsible game of chicken — with no winners — and the traveling and shipping public will be the losers.” ACI-NA President Greg Principato thinks “decisions on cutting air traffic control services should be made based on most efficiently serving the needs and safety of the traveling public and in consultation with airports, airlines as well as affected communities.” A4A’s Jean Medina said that “no one wants to see the sequester happen,” and AOPA President and CEO Craig Fuller said he’s “deeply concerned” that the cuts “will compromise aviation safety and severely damage the efficiency of general aviation flight operations nationally.”

Busy week for controllers: NATCA also has a busy week talking about our other favorite “s” word (the first one isn’t fit to print). On Wednesday morning, the group puts out a report detailing the sequester’s effects on the aviation network, including a “detailed analysis” of more than a dozen airports. Later that day, Rinaldi speaks at the AeroClub luncheon and will chat with reporters afterwards. NATCA is also making some of its representatives available for media talks at major airport towers.

COLLISION COURSE: Truckers and safety advocates have run headlong into each other in a public spat over who to blame in crashes between cars and trucks. Both trucking groups and safety advocates are trying to bring science to bear in their arguments, with each side citing studies full of obscure terms and charts that would easily be at home in a scientific journal. Beyond the science, the problem has real-life implications: Thousands of people die every year from crashes involving big rigs, and truck-car crashes are twice as likely to cause fatalities as two cars colliding. The heated debate bubbled up again with a recent ATA study finding that car drivers are usually at fault for crashes with trucks. The Truck Safety Coalition was “appalled” at that report and shot out a strongly-worded letter. ATA replied by pointing to a FMCSA-commissioned study to back up their claims. Like every good drama, there’s a twist — the deputy FMCSA administrator who stood by the study in 2010 used to be a Truck Safety Coalition spokesman. Adam runs it down for Pros: http://politico.pro/X4Ofbh

DREAM DREAM DREAMLINER: The tête-à-tête between Boeing and the FAA on Friday afternoon on a potential fix for the company’s 787 Dreamliner fleet was “productive,” according to a statement from Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel, who said the airplane manufacturer is “encouraged by progress made toward resolving the issue.” But even in the best-case scenario, the 787 fleet may still be in chocks for weeks or longer while the FAA analyzes Boeing’s proposals. If the FAA signs off on the plan, it will still have to conduct some sort of recertification process, which is usually a monthslong process, if not longer. Birtel gave no details on the meeting except that Ray Conner, the president and CEO of Boeing’s commercial wing, and Huerta attended.

MT POLL RESULTS — Most-missed senator: It was a close one, but with 51 percent of the vote, MT readers dubbed Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller the most-missed transportation senator of the five who have so far announced their retirements. Frank Lautenberg was a close second, with 46 percent. With those two transportation titans, Sens. Tom Harkin, Saxby Chambliss and Mike Johanns didn’t stand a chance. Of note: Two readers think another big transportation name will call it quits before the year is up.

NEW MT POLL — Sequestration vacation: You’ve read all the stories about sequestration, air traffic controllers and long TSA lines. But if the cuts kick in, will you rethink your travel plans? Will you just get to the airport much earlier or look for alternate methods? Maybe you’ll just keep doing the same thing and hope you don’t regret it. Let us know what you’re doing to deal with air travel, just do it before Sunday at noon: http://bit.ly/1247xS5

REPORT-BAG — Insert tolling pun here: HNTB has a new white paper on “maximizing toll collection on multistate facilities.” The summary has a good description of the issue: “Aging bridges and four-lane interstates can’t keep up with the ballooning populations of multistate regions. Neither can departments of transportation, when budgets rely on funding sources as antiquated as the infrastructure.” The paper explores the background, the climate shaping policy and much more. Read a summary and download the report here: http://bit.ly/ZxAioX

THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ)

– Is it taking too long for NHTSA to do its work? NYT: http://nyti.ms/VGiTXz

– France clams it will be offering the cheapest HSR tickets in the world. Transport Politic: http://bit.ly/136XpI2

– California High-Speed Rail Authority settles a second CEQA lawsuit. http://bit.ly/YuLdZG

– California Senate puts forward CEQA reform effort. CAHSR Blog: http://bit.ly/ZCbEU1

– Majority of Californians support licenses for undocumented immigrants. The Field Poll: http://bit.ly/WcyAZ1

– A fascinating look at contrails and climate change, featuring some great satellite images. Atlantic Cities: http://bit.ly/XQllaG

– The Century Foundation has added Michael Likosky as senior fellow; he will focus on infrastructure issues. http://bit.ly/YIjIxN

TRIVIA NIGHT: POLITICO Pro Trivia is back tomorrow at 6 p.m., featuring POLITICO Pro’s Tony Romm and Juana Summers teeing up questions on all things policy, politics and D.C. RSVP with teams of four to eholman@POLITICO.com.

THE COUNTDOWN: The new sequestration deadline is in four days. It’s been 27 days since Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced his departure, and DOT funding runs out in 31 days. Passenger rail policy runs out in 218 days, surface transportation policy in 586 days and FAA policy in 948 days. The mid-term elections are in 617 days.

CABOOSE — Awesome bus stop: Qualcomm got creative with its advertising at a bus stop, putting up posters asking, “In a hurry?” or “Seen it all?” with a web page. Brave bus-waiters who visited the site were then surprised with rides from an attractive woman driving a Lamborghini, an on-the-road dog sled — and even a bus full of circus performers. The two-minute video, via Gawker, is definitely worth a watch: http://gaw.kr/XQlQBD

Read the original article here >>

Bumper to Bumper: Transportation groups ally to campaign for state funding

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

Transportation interest groups from around the state formed a coalition that they hope will influence state lawmakers’ budget priorities.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth and about 20 other organizations from Bethesda to Baltimore are pushing for the state to increase funding for transportation. They formed “Get Maryland Moving” on Feb. 19, hoping to make a bigger impact on budget decisions.

Leaders of Get Maryland Moving warn that without a source of new revenue, critical projects like the Purple Line and Corridor Cities Transitway could be delayed for years.

One of the new coalition’s members is Purple Line Now!, a Montgomery County and Prince George’s County alliance of local organizations that support the 16-mile light-rail project.

The Purple Line would connect Metro’s Red Line at the Bethesda station to the Green Line at New Carrollton and is estimated to cost about $2.1 billion. Without state funding, however, the Purple Line will not be built, County Councilmember George L. Leventhal said.

The Maryland Department of Transportation has started designing the light-rail line, but the state has not dedicated funds to build it.

“Our campaign right now is to get transportation funding,” Purple Line Now! President Ralph Bennett said. His organization first started working with the Coalition for Smarter Growth — a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to transit-oriented communities — last year.

“We came to the realization that we couldn’t get very far [by ourselves],” Bennett said. Purple Line Now! sends emails to constituents to encourage them to support their cause and meet with legislators. But, now that they are part of Get Maryland Moving, they can cast a wider net to look for support, he said.

Get Maryland Moving plans to make its case in Annapolis on March 6 by making fake gravestones for a major transportation project in every jurisdiction of the state, according to Bennett.

“If we don’t get funding,” he said, “all of those projects will die.”

The Greater Bethesda Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce is also a member of Get Maryland Moving.

“Transportation has always been a top priority for us, and the Purple Line is it,” said the chamber’s president and CEO, Ginanne Italiano. “Our concern is it’s wasted taxpayer dollars if they don’t finish the job and get the funding going.”

Italiano said transportation funding is at a “critical point,” and Get Maryland Moving is what’s necessary to gain support. The chamber is planning to ask its members to come to Annapolis and talk to legislators about what they want for the Purple Line.

“With the sequester happening, it’s vital,” she said.