By Deborah Kafoury and Chris Rall
With Congress facing a March 31 deadline to reauthorize the long-term transportation bill, we have an opportunity to set transportation on the right track. Gabriel Roth's recipe for disaster (
) would have the federal government shirk its responsibility for transportation, leaving cash-strapped states and local governments on their own to try to prevent their roads, bridges and transit systems from crumbling.
In his extremist call for the elimination of the federal transportation program, Roth clings to the fantasy that a "user pays" system would eliminate subsidies for transit projects but leave road projects unaffected. In truth, roads don't pay for themselves. According to a report from U.S. PIRG, highway user fees pay only about half the cost of building and maintaining the nation's network of highways, roads and streets.
Once we set Roth's non-starter aside, how do we get greater accountability that our taxpayer dollars are put to effective use developing the best possible transportation system?
Performance is the name of the game. We need to reward states and regions that do a better job of repairing roads and bridges, reducing pollution and congestion, and improving affordable options and freight mobility. The most cost-effective answer to getting better performance is often something other than old-fashioned road building.
Thanks to a relatively modest investment in the eastside bike network, the vast majority of growth in traffic on the Hawthorne Bridge has been bicycle traffic, eliminating the need for bridge widening that would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a win-win when you get more capacity per taxpayer dollar, provide a healthier option for commuters who choose to cycle and build on the attractiveness of our city.
Bike and pedestrian projects are critical for safety, cost-effective, and have multiple benefits to congestion, public health, the economy and quality of life. Congress must ensure that bike and pedestrian funding is maintained.
Upstream from the Hawthorne, another bridge provides yet another example of getting more bang for the buck. The new Sellwood Bridge will increase capacity across the Willamette River not by adding expensive car lanes, but by better serving bicyclists, pedestrians and eventually the streetcar, all modes the old structurally deficient bridge serves poorly, if at all.
This smart approach is part of why the Sellwood Bridge replacement project won funding from the TIGER program (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery), one of the few truly competitive federal transportation programs that award funding according to merit-based criteria. The TIGER program should be expanded and its principles applied to other programs.
At a larger scale, we need to plan transportation and land use holistically. Portland is a leader in this arena, but other regions have also employed strategic planning to explore various scenarios, saving a lot of money on infrastructure costs while developing according to the community's vision. By employing this tool, the Charlottesville, Va., region, for example, has cut future infrastructure costs in half, saving $500 million over the next 20 years. The federal transportation program should support and reward this type of approach.
A performance-based multimodal approach can get our transportation system on track to serve our needs. Rather than shirk its responsibility, Congress needs to get moving. March 31 is right around the corner.
Deborah Kafoury is Multnomah County Commissioner for District 1. Chris Rall is Oregon field organizer for Transportation for America, a coalition working on transportation reform.