As Congress prepares to debate a new six year federal transportation bill, theEnvironmental Defense Fund has released a reportthat examines how different cities and towns are using transit to address their transportation needs. The EDF says these initiatives – which include everything from bus rapid transit and streetcars to bike sharing and van pools – cut pollution and congestion, save time and money, create jobs, and make life easier for commuters.
"With the big (transportation) bill up for re-authorization, this is a good time to ask where our resources should be going and what our priorities should be," the EDF's Dan Cronin told Wired.com. "We want people to know that there are options and opportunities for getting around that don't have to involve a car."
With subway and bus ridership at record levels and lots of infrastructure money beginning to find its way into city and state coffers, people are beginning to pay more attention to transit. The EDF's report, "Reinventing Transit: American communities finding smarter, cleaner, faster transportation" attempts to capitalize on this renewed interest by profiling projects that have put into place in communities large and small across the country. "Transit isn't just for big cities like Minneapolis and New York," Cronin says. "There are innovative things happening in places like Grand Rapids and Eugene, OR, too ."
Some of the programs highlighted in the report include:
- Bike programs like Cycle Center in Chicago’s Millennium Park, which provides 300 safe, well-lit indoor parking spaces for bikes, as well as showers, lockers, and on-site repair. Bikestation, a non-profit that signs deals with city and state governments to build and manage bike facilities, estimates that the 668 parking spots it operates around the country have reduced car use by 420,900 miles.
- The OmniLink bus in Prince William County, Virginia, which uses a real time reservation system to schedule pick ups for passengers almost a mile off route, and GPS dispatching and scheduling to keep buses running in sync.
- A system in Minneapolis where bus drivers are able to ride on shoulder lanes when traffic slows to under 35 mph. In addition to cutting five to 15 minutes off the time of a typical bus commute, the EDF says ongoing work to widen and maintain shoulder lanes has created construction jobs in the region.
- Portland, Oregon’s streetcar system, which serves 13,000 and has created jobs at Oregon Iron Works, where the streetcars are built. The EDF estimates that the streetcars have cut vehicle traffic in Portland by 70 million miles annually, and is one of the reasons the city has seen car traffic drop by six percent since 1990.
The EDF’s Cronin says that although not all of these programs are new, they demonstrate innovative thinking and can serve as blueprints for other cities and states interested in strengthening their transit networks. "By highlighting some of the programs that are working, we hope to start a dialogue," Cronin says. "Not every idea is going to work in every city, but there are lots of good ideas out there that need to be shared."
While critics argue that launching expensive new transit projects in the middle of a recession is a dumb idea, Cronin counters that waiting will end up costing more. "(New transit projects) create good jobs, cut energy use, and reduce congestion," he says. "If we don't make the investment now, the problems will only get worse." The EDF sees new transit initiatives as one piece of a larger strategy to overhaul transportation in the United States, and also advocates strengthening existing infrastructure, implementing congestion pricing, upgrading ports with electric power for docked ships, and investigating new models for financing transportation projects.
Publicly at least, members of Congress are enthusiastic about the report’s findings. “Given our economic and environmental challenges, ‘business as usual’ transportation solutions are not good enough,” said Congressman Jim Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee in a statement. “Reinventing Transit sets the standard for transit investments in the upcoming transportation bill to fuel America’s economic recovery.”
Oberstar had planned to give his comments in person at a news conference announcing the release of the report, but he missed it because he was stuck in traffic. We're not kidding.
*Photo of Portland streetcar: Flickr/Jason McHuff
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