Obama removes restriction on transit funding

RTD and other agencies that are planning transit projects will have to wait for new rules to be drafted to see if the Obama Administration’s decision last week removing Bush Administration restrictions on funding transit will bring more money into FasTracks corridors or projects like the proposed Colfax Streetcar.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week that making transit grant funding decisions based solely on bottom-line mathematical calculations of, essentially, cost over travel-time savings failed to take into account whether projects improved a community’s livability.

You can read the text of LaHood’s speech here.

As a result, the DOT will draft new regulations for its New Starts and Small Starts grant programs for transit corridors to allow consideration of such things as lowering carbon emissions, promoting economic development and relieve congestion.

RTD says it’s way too early to know the impact any changes might have on FasTracks corridors that didn’t meet the old threshold for funding – the North Metro heavy rail commuter line serving Commerce City and Thornton, the I-225 light rail extension from Parker Road to the Fitzsimons medical campus and Smith Road, and the Northwest Rail commuter line serving Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont. Also, FasTracks extensions to existing light rail corridors don’t get federal funding.

FasTracks’ financial crunch – it’s projected to cost $6.5 billion through 2017 but RTD is $2.45 billion short of cash to pay for it – has several corridors facing potentially lengthy delays in completion, to beyond 2035, unless new funds can be found. While RTD’s elected board is mulling over the possibility of asking voters to approve a second tax hike for it, additional federal funds would be a help.

In addition, the new rules could open up the possibility of federal funding for Denver’s proposed Colfax Streetcar project. The city has been looking at a fixed-track streetcar system along the region’s busiest transit corridor from Interstate 25 to Syracuse Street. You can read about the city’s feasibility study here.

LaHood’s announcement is actually not a radical change, but a return to the broader language in the federal statute that already laid out many factors to be considered in funding projects in addition to cost effectiveness. As LaHood noted in a letter last week to transit stakeholders, those considerations were taken off the table by the Bush Administration in 2005 in favor of focusing solely on cost-effectiveness.

U.S.C. 49 Section 5309(d) had allowed the Federal Transit Administration to approve grants to new projects that are “justified based on a comprehensive review of its mobility improvements, environmental benefits, cost effectiveness, operating efficiencies, economic development effects, and public transportation supportive land use policies and future patterns.”

That changed in 2005 with the administrative restriction that LaHood lifted.

“Everywhere I go, the message is loud and clear: People want more and better transportation infrastructure in their communities – from highways and bridges to light rail, multi-modal transit stations, bike paths, and walkways,” LaHood told attendees at a Transportation Research Board luncheon last week.

“We’re going to free our flagship transit capital program from long-standing requirements that have allowed us only to green-light projects that meet very narrow cost and performance criteria,” LaHood continued. “Instead, as we evaluate major transit projects going forward, we’ll consider all the factors that help communities reduce their carbon footprint, spur economic activity, and relieve congestion.

“To put it simply: We will take livability into account. This new approach will help us do a much better job aligning our priorities and values with our investments in transit projects that truly strengthen communities. We’ll finally be able to make the case for investing in popular streetcar projects and other transit systems that people want – and that our old ways of doing business didn’t value enough.”

Of 10 FasTracks corridors – nine rail and one Bus Rapid transit – only three qualify for federal New Starts grants under the 2005 restriction. One, the West Corridor light rail serving Denver, Lakewood and Golden, is in full construction and did receive a $308 million Federal Transit Administration New Starts grant. The grants are paid out over a multi-year timetable laid out in a formal agreement. The FasTracks East Corridor to Denver International Airport and the Gold Line to Arvada-Wheat Ridge – which are heavy-rail commuter trains rather than light rail – also qualify for a combined $1 billion in grants.

Two of RTD’s existing light rail corridors received New Starts grants — the Southeast Corridor, built as part of the T-REX project, and the Southwest Corridor to Littleton.

But FasTracks corridors with lower projected ridership compared with their costs didn’t meet the more restrictive Bush threshold. Whether they will meet the new threshold based on the full statutory range of considerations can’t be known right now.

In fact, removing the restriction opens up the competition for limited funds to a broader range of projects in other cities that are anxious to get funding as well, so there are no guarantees that eligibility will result in funding.

Using a cost-effectiveness index as the sole basis for making grant decisions meant that corridors facing stiff cost challenges due to site factors such as terrain or right-of-way issues – constructability issues having nothing to do with actual ridership or travel time calculations – could have been disqualified for reasons unrelated to the level of ridership and the travel time calculations.

For example, the FasTracks North Metro Corridor sustained cost escalations from several constructability problems, primarily the need to get around the complicated freight railroad crossing area called Sand Creek Junction in Commerce City, where the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroads cross each other and the creek under Interstate 270. That has RTD looking at virgin alignment with more right-of-way acquisition. There are also more retaining walls and noise walls required in the project than originally thought.

In order to keep projects that were close to the threshold on the fundable side of the line, project sponsors would trim elements that helped the line perform better. LaHood’s action could put them back in the mix.

For instance, on the West Corridor, RTD cut back the west segment of the line from the Denver Federal Center to the Jefferson County Government center to a single-track section. That restricts potential growth in service because a single track will permit trains to run with headway frequencies no shorter than 15 minutes. While that is sufficient for opening day projected ridership, it restricts the ability to add rush-hour frequencies at seven and a half or five minutes.