The U.S. Senate is working quickly and furiously on a multi-year highway bill which, if passed, would establish transportation funding levels and policy for several years to come. There are a whole host of non-transportation amendments that could be poison pills for the effort—inlcuding fights over the Export-Import Bank, Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act—but there are some positive developments emerging as well, including an amendment that would bolster local transportation decision-making.
The amendment to be introduced by Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) is an evolution of the Senators’ proposed Innovation in Surface Transportation Act. It would increase the overall Surface Transportation Program (STP)—the most flexible pot of federal money available for local governments—and it would increase the portion of funds distributed to local areas based on population. Transportation for America estimates that the pot would increase by $286 million overall, and the STP suballocation to smaller communities would go up by about $671 million.
Local governments own and operate a good portion of the transportation infrastructure (78 percent of the nation’s road miles, 43 percent of the nation’s federal-aid highway miles, 50 percent of the nation’s bridge inventory) but unfortunately they don’t have a say over the flow of federal funds. The Wicker-Booker amendment would help to change that. Under current law (MAP-21), funds that flow from STP to regions with under 200,000 in population is determined by the state. With this amendment, states would be required to establish an open and transparent grant process. Applications would only be open to local governments, regional transportation authorities, transit agencies, regional transportation planning organizations and tribal governments, enabling local municipalities — not state departments of transportation — to put forward their priorities.
The Wicker-Booker amendment has support from the National Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, Transportation for America, and others (including Tri-State). We encourage you to call your senators and ask them to support the Wicker-Booker amendment for better local control.
You need to do your homework before reposting propaganda like this. Some states already allocate funds to MPOs that represent urbanized areas (UAs) of under 200,000 in the same way that funds are allocated to MPOs representing larger UAs. Such arrangements ensure transportation equity among all MPOs–funds are usually distributed out on a per capita basis. A state-run competitive process, in contrast, will favor the politically connected. Some MPOs are supporting this amendment in order to grab funds from their neighbors, i.e., moving from a per capita (one person equals one dollar) to a political process.
Forcing states that do not allocate funds on an equitable basis (e.g., per capita) to larger and smaller MPOs is a good thing, but destroying that equity in states that do is not.
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