BAF IN THE NEWS
Philadelphia Inquirer: Rendell says maglev train should be more than a dream
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140305_For_some__maglev_train_more_than_a_dream.html
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell on Tuesday hosted a pitch for a super-high-speed, magnetically levitated train that could whisk riders from Philadelphia to New York City in 25 minutes and to Washington in 30.
NATIONAL NEWS
The New York Times: A Disaster Brought Awareness but Little Action on Infrastructure
Like the weather, the need to repair America’s troubled bridges is something that everyone talks about, without doing a thing about it. Or at least they do not do nearly enough.
Bloomberg News: Students to highways win in Obama budget as air passengers lose
March 4 (Bloomberg) -- The winners in PresidentBarack Obama’s $3.9 trillion budget request would be low-income families, college students, researchers and highway users.
The Hill: Fla. SunRail, Md. Purple Line among DOT ‘new start’ grant winners
A proposed light rail in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., and a Florida commuter rail extension are among the recommended winners of “new starts” transportation grants in President Obama’s proposed 2015 budget.
Bike Portland: USDOT Sec. Foxx focuses on safety, politics and economics at Summit speech
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx made his National Bike Summit debut today. The man that used to hold his job, Ray LaHood, was a crowd favorite for many years and had endeared himself with advocates for his pro-bike proclamations (sometimes delivered via tabletop).
STATE NEWS
Fresno Bee: Judge: Kings County high-speed rail lawsuit can move forward
http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/03/04/3802992/judge-kings-county-high-speed.html
A Sacramento judge ruled Tuesday that Kings County and two of its residents can forge ahead with a challenge to the California High-Speed Rail Authority over its statewide bullet-train plans
Washington Post: Agency recommends federal funding to build light-rail Purple Line in Maryland
A proposed light-rail Purple Line project has been recommended for $100 million in federal money in the next fiscal year as part of President Obama’s budget released Tuesday, marking a critical financial milestone for what would be the Maryland suburbs’ first direct rail link.
Fort Worth Star Telegram: Chugging along: TEX Rail plan gets $50 million in federal funds
http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/03/04/5621600/chugging-along-tex-rail-plan-gets.html?rh=1
TEX Rail, a proposed commuter rail line from downtown Fort Worth to Grapevine and the north entrance to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport will be awarded $50 million in a package of federal projects to be announced Wednesday, officials said.
The Hill: Obama budget gives $150 million to DC Metro
President Obama’s proposed 2015 budget includes $150 million for the Washington, D.C., Metrorail subway system.
Pacific Business News: Obama’s Budget includes $250M for Honolulu rail project
http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2014/03/04/obamas-budget-includes-250m-for.html
President Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Transportation budget for the next fiscal year includes $250 million for the Honolulu rail project, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation said Tuesday.
The Tennessean: Nashville Amp on course for federal funds
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20140304/NEWS0202/303040090/Nashville-Amp-course-federal-funds
Supporters of a proposed mass transit project said Tuesday’s announcement that Nashville is on track for up to $75 million in federal funding was a critical step forward — maybe even the deciding one.
POLITICO MORNING TRANSPORTATION
By Adam Snider | 3/5/14 5:46 AM EST
Featuring Kathryn A. Wolfe and Kevin Robillard
BUDGET DAY FALLOUT: President Barack Obama’s budget is out and ready for your perusal (highlights: http://1.usa.gov/1lx0qdr; appendix: http://1.usa.gov/1i5VNCs), but the big news from yesterday’s roll-out was a promise of more to come. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, talking to reporters about the $90.9 billion DOT slice of the budget, vowed to “send a bill to Congress to in the coming months to turn this proposal into reality.” The administration has been criticized for never formally submitting a legislative proposal for a transportation bill, instead offering up blueprints in budget requests. With a growing Hill consensus on the use of corporate tax dollars to plug the Highway Trust Fund hole, a first-ever detailed proposal from the White House could help move the ball along as the House and Senate committees move forward in the coming months.
The budget itself: It includes the outline of a $302 billion, four-year MAP-21 reauthorization proposal, along with a number of spending increases for things like highways, rail, and transit. The boost in several rail accounts stand out — the White House wants FRA spending to rise from $1.6 billion to $5 billion and the FTA’s budget would rise by nearly 70 percent, going from $10.8 billion to $17.7 billion. Most of that is transit formula grants, which the White House wants to see rise from $8.6 billion to $14 billion next year. In conjunction with that request, today DOT and Foxx unveil a list of which specific transit projects the administration wants funded as part of FTA’s annual report on the Capital Investment Grant Program. The Washington Post reports the controversial Purple Line light-rail project in Maryland gets a full-funding grant agreement and a slice of the money Foxx is announcing today: http://wapo.st/1fYkK3H
Why the big win for transit in the fiscal 2015 budget? Simple math, Foxx said. “We’re looking at long-term population trends in this country and it’s increasingly clear that the population surges are happening in metro areas around the country,” he said. “It’s not just in cities, it’s in suburbs, it’s in adjacent rural areas. But transit access is going to become increasingly important as a way of moving people, creating predictable travel times, and enhancing not only quality of life but also regional economy.” He also stressed that even though transit gets a big increase, the budget still keeps intact the “traditional split between highways and transit that has marked the path to this point. The additional resources that are provided to transit under our proposal are largely coming from the business tax reform and that is how we get there.” Kathryn has more for Pros: http://politico.pro/1crIvSL
Not happy: “Today’s proposed budget misses the mark when it comes to the transportation needs of the U.S. economy,” said ATA President Bill Graves. “It provides no real funding solutions for the long-term health of our infrastructure and proposes massive new subsidies for a mode that moves a small proportion of America’s freight and passengers.”
IN THE SKIES … Of course the ground side isn’t the only part of the budget. The aviation part has come under fire on several fronts. Aerospace Industries Association chief and former FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said the budget’s $65 million cut to NextGen “poses new obstacles.” A $100 per-flight aviation fee that has also been floated in years past but easily rejected on the Hill drew strong rebukes from GAMA and AOPA. The Alliance for Aviation Across America called the fees a “non-starter” and said Congress should reject them “as it has repeatedly done in the past.”
… AND THE WATER: The American Association of Port Authorities “expresses both encouragement and disappointment” at the budget, the group said. AAPA praised the $1.25 billion in TIGER grants but scolded cuts to Corps of Engineers’ seaport modernization programs and the proposed elimination of the Port Security Grant Program, which would be replaced by state and local programs.
MIDWEEK, FOR WHAT THAT’S WORTH. Thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and ports, where on this day in 1963, country singer Patsy Cline died when he private plane crashed near Camden, Tenn. Please be in touch: asnider@politico.com and on Twitter at @AdamKSnider.
“Driving in your car / Oh, I never never want to go home … ” http://bit.ly/1cpsHzZ
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Kevin has kindly agreed to take the MT reins for a day, so please send all of today’s news, tips, scoops and belated budget reactions his way: krobillard@politico.com. Your regular host is flying to Las Vegas today for a transportation forum; more on that in tomorrow’s MT …
** A message from POWERJobs: Jobs on our radar this week: Senior IT Security Specialist / Network Engineer at SAIC, Chief — IT Quality Assurance at METRO and Government Affairs Manager at Financial Services Roundtable. Interested? Apply to these jobs and more at www.POWERJobs.com; finally, a career site made for YOU! **
DON’T BE CRUDE: Obama’s budget also includes a multi-agency effort to improve the safety of oil being moved by rail, including data collection and more safety inspectors. The blueprint proposes $40 million for FRA, PHMSA and FMCSA to “support the prevention and response activities associated with the safe transportation of crude oil” — including “enhanced inspection levels” and more safety inspectors, “investigative efforts,” research and data crunching, economic analysis, training and outreach and testing for “high risk areas.” Replying to a reporter asking about from where the program could draw its funds after the initial appropriations, Foxx said “that’s an open question after this two-year period.”
Good timing: The proposal should be welcome news for a number of public officials who have been fretting about potentially dangerous trains running through their communities. The same day Obama’s budget included the new safety initiative, North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp urged PHMSA to share its oil testing methodology and data collection techniques with the rail industry “so that energy producers may provide better assistance in the data collection process.” At the same time, she urged the American Petroleum Institute to “come to the table to provide needed data regarding crude oil in the United States so that the regulators can deliver findings in a timely manner.” And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote Foxx and DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson asking for a host of actions, including codifying in regulation recent railroad industry operational changes agreed upon with DOT. Read his letter: http://bit.ly/1iaghOL
FIRST LOOK — Pedestrian deaths drop: The Governors Highway Safety Association puts out a report today showing 190 fewer pedestrian fatalities in the first half of 2013, a decline of nearly 9 percent from the same time a year ago. The early drop comes after three years of fatality increases. There were 1,985 deaths in the January-June 2013 timeframe compared to 2,175 the year before. Fatalities decreased in 25 states, increased in 20 and D.C. and stayed the same in five. More info from GHSA: http://bit.ly/1eSeTwZ
THE CONDITION OF THE CONDITIONS & PERFORMANCE REPORT: DOT quietly put out its latest “Conditions and Performance” report last Friday. And though the massive document has a disclaimer that it doesn’t endorse any policies or funding levels, it’s come under fire on several fronts. The latest is ARTBA, which takes issue with several things. The possible spending scenarios are in constant 2010 dollars, not adjusted to inflation, and the spending needs aren’t divided between federal and state/local. That makes the guidelines “not very useful in the form presented in the report and require adjustment to ensure meaningful application to the 2014 reauthorization of the federal surface transportation programs,” according to a memo from the ARTBA Economics & Research team. The memo also raises concern with how stimulus spending “artificially increases” the baseline and says that “trend-growth figures significantly understate future highway investment needs and should be ignored.” U.S. PIRG had already criticized the report for estimating continued increases in miles driven despite a decade-long downward trend.
$NOW$TORM: The latest winter storm that grounded thousands of flights and turned D.C. in a virtual ghost town on Monday has had a huge economic impact. WMATA, for example, lost $2 million in revenue on Monday, according to spokesman Dan Stessel. The nation’s second-busiest rail system saw only 132K trips two days ago compared to 673K last Monday. That cost $1.6 million in fare-gate revenue, with another $400K lost thanks to the complete closure of the bus system on Monday. And the U.S. Travel Association’s economists said that Monday’s 3,000 canceled flights cost $95.8 million in “passengers’ lost economic activity.”
MT READS TODAY’S FEDERAL REGISTER SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO: The FAA puts out an airworthiness directive calling for new low-range radio altimeter antennas for all Boeing 777 planes. It also requires new radio altimeter transceivers in some 777s. “We are issuing this AD to prevent adverse system responses and flight deck effects that could result in loss of controllability of the airplane or landing short of the runway during landing,” the agency says. FR: http://1.usa.gov/1fYzUGc
METRO-NORTH’S 100-DAY PLAN: Metro-North President Joseph Giulietti has filed a 100-day plan to improve safety for both passengers and workers. But Sen. Richard Blumenthal — who has kept the pressure on MTA ever since a series of accidents last year, including a derailment that killed four people — wants more. “As it stands, this document is a plan in name only, more a set of aspirations than an actionable roadmap for concrete improvements. Still, I am hopeful that this plan marks the start of long-overdue renewed focus on safety and reliability at Metro-North — both for passengers and workers,” he said in a statement. The New Haven Register has more on the plan: http://bit.ly/1ib1xPH
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ)
— The General Services Administration is looking for a new headquarters for the TSA. Washington Business Journal: http://bit.ly/1kwGg38
— Judge’s ruling keeps alive case against the California high-speed rail project. The Fresno Bee: http://bit.ly/1gPGInn
— Secretary Foxx praises New Mexico for becoming the 42nd state to ban texting while driving. NHTSA: http://1.usa.gov/1hKexby
— House passes T&I Chair Shuster’s propane delivery bill that relaxes truck driver work limits. Public Opinion: http://bit.ly/Ntt1SJ
— Foreign automakers stepped up in Detroit as the U.S. companies faltered. The Atlantic Cities: http://bit.ly/MMgF7h
THIS MONTH: ‘WHAT WORKS’ from POLITICO Magazine, a yearlong editorial series presented by JPMorgan Chase, focuses on how Los Angeles, long known as the city with no center, has reinvented its once-derelict downtown. Now that loft apartments and sidewalk cafes are pressing up against Skid Row, the city’s finally starting to pay serious attention to its huge population of chronically homeless people. http://politi.co/1kwuTIs
THE DAY AHEAD: 9 a.m. — Hosted by the League of American Bicyclists, the National Bike Summit will bring the momentum for a Bicycle Friendly America from the streets of hundreds of U.S. towns and cities to the halls of Congress. Renaissance Hotel, 999 9th Street NW. http://bit.ly/1k5lp6R
9:30 a.m. — Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security holds a meeting of the Transportation and Related Equipment Technical Advisory Committee to discuss technical questions that affect the level of export controls applicable to transportation and related equipment or technology. Hoover Building, 14th Street between Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues NW, Room 3884.
10 a.m. — House Transportation Committee’s special P3 panel holds a hearing titled “Overview of Public-Private Partnerships for Highway and Transit Projects.” 2167 Rayburn House Office Building.
10 a.m. — House T&I Aviation panel roundtable titled “How to Best Utilize FAA UAS (unmanned aircraft system) Test Range Data.” 2255 Rayburn House Office Building.
THE COUNTDOWN: MAP-21 expires and DOT funding runs out in 210 days. FAA policy is up in 575 days. The mid-term elections are in 244 days and the 2016 presidential election is in 979 days. MLB’s Opening Day is in 26 days.
CABOOSE — Foxx the comedian: The man second in line for the presidency and the man 13th in line both had a little fun with transportation jokes yesterday. Secretary Foxx opened his speech at the National Bike Summit by showing a picture (http://bit.ly/1c6a4k6) of him riding a bike, helmet and all. “This goes against all theories of politics,” he said. “You're not supposed to wear a hat.” (MT also recommends you roll up your spoke-side pant leg, Mr. Secretary.)
** A message from POWERJobs: Tap into the power of POWERJobs for the newest job opportunities in the Washington area from the area’s top employers, including AIPAC, Bipartisan Policy Center and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Powered by names you trust — POLITICO, WTOP, WJLA/ABC-TV, NewsChannel 8 and Federal News Radio- POWERJOBS is the ultimate career site with more than 2 million job searches and nearly 17,000 applications submitted this year so far. Connect through Facebook or LinkedIn, search jobs by industry and set up job-specific email alerts using www.POWERJobs.com, the site for Washington’s top talent. **
Stories from POLITICO Pro
Obama tries to boost rail, transit spending
Obama tries to boost rail, transit spending back
By Kathryn A. Wolfe | 3/4/14 12:40 PM EST
The transportation portion of President Barack Obama’s new budget is a largely derivative document, once again calling for large increases for rail and transit and outlining the bones of a transportation reauthorization proposal.
But the administration has done away with its past suggestions that the extra money could come from drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which many in Congress had decried as budgetary gimmickry.
Instead, as previewed last week, the budget proposes to pay for a $302 billion, four-year transportation bill with $150 billion in revenues derived from an overhaul of corporate taxes. That’s by no means a sure thing — but along with last week’s tax-overhaul draft from House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Obama’s proposal has at least gotten lawmakers talking about a pay-for and may make the inevitable budget hearings go down a little easier for new Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
Overall, the budget requests $91 billion for discretionary and mandatory spending for DOT, compared with $77 billion from last year. Most of DOT’s major sub-agencies would see boosts in proposed spending.
Highway spending would be set at $47.8 billion, compared with $40.3 billion from last year. The budget also would call for $4.9 billion as part of Obama’s “fix it first” agenda to be allocated to the Critical Immediate Investments Program, which the budget describes as targeting structurally deficient bridges, focusing on state-of-good-repair for Interstate highways and investing “where federal infrastructure safety funds are not frequently used.”
The Federal Transit Administration would see its budget boosted from $10.8 billion to $17.7 billion. The lion’s share of that would be formula grants, which Obama requests be set at $14 billion, compared with $8.6 billion enacted last year.
The budget again resurrects a call that Congress has previously rejected to restructure the Highway Trust Fund and include rail under its auspices, though the Federal Railroad Administration’s budget isn’t quite as robust as what Obama proposed last year.
The fiscal 2015 budget requests $5 billion for the FRA — a vast increase over the $1.6 billion it received in fiscal 2014 but less than the $6.6 billion the administration requested last year.
The budget again proposes including rail accounts under a newly configured Transportation Trust Fund, primarily into two large accounts: the Rail Service Improvement Program at $2.3 billion and the Current Passenger Rail Service program at $2.5 billion.
CPRS grants, according to the budget, will be to ensure passenger rail “assets are maintained … as well as to continue operating long-distance train services.” It’s also referenced as part of Obama’s “fix it first” agenda.
Obama again proposes to remove Amtrak from the annual appropriations process and instead fold it into trust fund programs — although, unlike last year’s budget, the new document does not contain discrete funding totals for Amtrak. Last year’s budget proposed $2.7 billion for Amtrak.
The budget does continue to propose purpose-driven pots of passenger rail money, many of which track with Amtrak’s responsibilities. For instance, the budget proposes $550 million for Northeast Corridor state-of-good-repair, $850 million for long-distance routes and $475 million for “backbone rail facilities,” debt service for Amtrak and implementation of Positive Train Control on Amtrak routes.
It also proposes $1.3 million for “high performance rail networks” and $825 million to help commuter railroads implement Positive Train Control as the bulk of the Rail Service Improvement Program.
Of the DOT’s large subagencies, the FAA is the only one not slated for an increase. The budget requests $16.5 billion for FAA, a mostly status-quo budget. However, budget summary documents note that it would allocate roughly $1 billion to NextGen programs.
It again resurrects its previous call for Congress to trim the Airport Improvement Program from the $3.4 billion enacted last year to about $2.9 billion. In essence, large hub airports would be cut out of the AIP program, in exchange for raising the Passenger Facilities Charge cap that they can levy as part of the cost of an airplane ticket. Right now the cap is $4.50 per flight segment; the budget proposes to raise it to $8.
“The administration proposes to focus federal grants to support smaller commercial and general aviation airports that do not have access to additional revenue or other outside sources of capital. The budget also proposes to allow all commercial service airports to increase the non-Federal Passenger Facility Charge, thereby giving airports greater flexibility to generate their own revenue,” the budget reads.
The budget again contains a proposal for a $100-per-flight fee for commercial aviation “to more equitably distribute the cost of air traffic services across the aviation user community,” beginning after Sept. 30.
The fee is a hardy perennial in Obama’s budgets, but Congress has yet to enact such a thing.
The budget also will propose to move the TIGER grant program into the Transportation Trust Fund and allocate $5 billion over four years for the program. And it will include $10 billion for a new freight program to benefit goods movement and exports.
The budget calls for an annual $1 billion in funding for the TIFIA program, which leverages private investment in transportation infrastructure and was vastly expanded under MAP-21, and $10 billion over four years for a new freight program.
A proposal for a national infrastructure bank capitalized with $10 billion also makes an appearance again. As in last year’s budget, it would be organized as an independent entity, not as part of the Transportation Department.
The budget envisions an infrastructure bank led by “infrastructure and financial experts” that would fund up to half the costs of transportation, water and energy projects through an unspecified “dedicated revenue stream.”
The budget also includes a proposed multi-agency initiative to help bolster the federal response to a spate of accidents by trains carrying crude oil, including data collection and additional safety inspectors.
The budget proposes $40 million for a new initiative to “support the prevention and response activities associated with the safe transportation of crude oil” — including “enhanced inspection levels” and more safety inspectors, “investigative efforts,” research and data crunching, economic analysis, training and outreach and testing for “high risk areas.”
The funds would be available between the FRA, PHMSA and FMCSA.
And in keeping with Obama’s continuing call for speeding up infrastructure projects, the budget calls for $8 million to create an an infrastructure permitting center at DOT that will develop new ways to speed up projects and institute tools to help track project schedules and metrics, as well as the transparency of the permitting process.
BAF IN THE NEWS
Philadelphia Inquirer: Rendell says maglev train should be more than a dream
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140305_For_some__maglev_train_more_than_a_dream.html
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell on Tuesday hosted a pitch for a super-high-speed, magnetically levitated train that could whisk riders from Philadelphia to New York City in 25 minutes and to Washington in 30.