A new plan for transportation

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The Obama administration is changing the way that it awards funds for transportation projects. It’s not just an effort to speed up the pace of transportation funding, but also a change in vision on how the money is awarded and what kinds of projects get funded. Fair treatment, say the administration, includes fair access to good transportation across communities.

“An important part of our need to speed up this process involves quitting all the haggling between the federal government and these agencies about whether they follow and pass a very narrow criteria,” said Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff. “Instead, we’re going to recognize all of the benefits that transit projects provide, like environmental benefits, mobility benefits, benefits to low-income communities.”

David Schultz, transportation reporter for WAMU in Washington, DC, says it’s a big change from the funding criteria established by the Bush administration.

“The Obama administration changed the criteria, and now they’ll be looking at funding transportation projects that have livability benefits, said Schultz. “And that includes economic development and environmental benefits for economically-distressed areas. One example of that in the DC area is a bus grant that is going towards Prince George’s County in Maryland and other areas throughout the DC region.”

The money, 15 million dollars, will go towards improving 2,600 bus stops, says Schultz. The improvements will be in the form of better signage, new shelters, more benches and better lighting. The project wasn’t designed to shorten commute time; instead, it aims to get people on buses who wouldn’t be riding buses otherwise.

“This will serve economically underdeveloped areas, areas with lots of African Americans, Latinos, Asians — it’s definitely targeted at those neighborhoods,” said Schultz.

Minnesota Public Radio news reporter Laura Yuen says the new funding announcement helped resolve a hot button issue in her state.

Minnesota’s Central Corridor project is an 11-mile, light rail transit route connecting the downtown areas of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The close to eight million dollars in federal transportation funding will allow for the inclusion of three additional stops along the line that were previously considered not cost-effective. These stops would serve low-income communities.

“Some folks felt that this line was just being built as kind of a pass-through for the rich,” said Yuen.

California-based Guillermo Mayer, a senior staff attorney with Public Advocate, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy agency, says what happened in his state was an example of how the federal government pulled funding from a project because local officials didn’t take the necessary steps to ensure the project was fair to low-income and minority populations.

At issue is a three-mile connector between the Oakland Airport and the Bay Area Rapid Transit district, the commuter rail service in the San Francisco Bay area. The project would replace an existing bus shuttle that connects the BART system to the airport with a half-a-million rail link.

“The concern over this project is that it does not provide any benefits to East Oakland residents who are overwhelmingly African American, Latino, Asian and low-income,” said Mayer. “It includes no intermediate stops so that East Oakland residents can access the many jobs along the three-mile route. And it really has not included their input. This project has significantly changed, and the community has been left out.”

Mayer’s agency fought against the project and the Obama administration ruled in their favor. “It was unprecedented,” said Mayer. “You rarely see this kind of agency enforcement of civil rights. It signals a major shift in civil rights enforcement, not only at the Federal Transit Administration, but we think, at other federal agencies.”

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