Transportation

Round Three: Your Stories About Avoiding the High Cost of Gas by Walking, Biking and Taking Public Transportation

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A recent NBC poll found a whopping 69 percent say that high gas prices have affected them either “a great deal” or “quite a bit.” That was significantly higher than any other economic concern on the list– higher than rising food prices, foreclosures, or even unemployment.

When Smart Growth America asked for stories about the impact of high gas prices, a number of people told us about lifestyle choices they made so they wouldn’t be dependent on driving or severely affected by gas prices. Several people told us they chose to live in a place where walking, biking and public transportation were viable options because they wanted that kind of freedom for getting around. Here are some of their stories:

Seven years ago, when Patricia moved from “car-country California” to coastal North Carolina, gas prices were $1.38. But she said, regardless of the cost of filling up her tank, they wanted to live where they could walk or bike for most of their daily errands. Now gas prices have tripled. While she’s glad she’s not reliant on a car for most daily needs, her family is still carefully considering (and cancelling some) long-distance car trips. Patricia also noted that since gas prices started climbing she’s seen more people of all shapes and sizes out on their bikes– a trend she thinks is a good thing.

Steve from Kansas City told us “three years ago when my wife and I were considering buying a new house, availability of mass transit was a high priority and living in a ‘walkable neighborhood.’ We now live a half block from a bus stop and within 4 miles of my wife’s work. We regularly walk for errands or ride our bicycles.” Steve logged 3,500 miles on his bike last year (that means savings on gas and a gym membership!) and frequently rides the bus. He mentioned that now that gas prices have gone up he’s noticed many more bus riders, and he’s relieved that he and his wife don’t have to worry about gas prices too much.

When Gretchen moved to Boston last year, she got rid of her car. Gretchen pointed out that in addition to gas, she didn’t want to be beholden to maintenance, repairs and parking expenses too. It can be challenging to visit her family in New Hampshire where public transportation options are limited, but with some flexibility, carpooling, and building in extra travel time she’s been able to make due car-free and is happy with her decision.

As gas prices remain high, more and more Americans are looking to drive shorter distances or increase their transportation choices. The NBC poll is a reminder that even though gas prices have recently dropped 30 or 40 cents from their high earlier this year, this significant expense is still hurting household budgets across the country – and people are starting to make big changes in reaction to that. Part of Smart Growth America’s work is helping great communities have more low cost options for getting around, but we need to hear from you to do it. Read other stories about how people are dealing with the high cost of gas here and here, and click here to tell us your story.

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Round Two: Your Stories About the High Cost of Gas and Your Jobs

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Rising gas prices and high levels of unemployment continue to weigh on the American economy. Smart Growth America asked for stories about how high gas prices are affecting your life, and we heard many stories about how expensive gas is making your professional life more challenging. With gas costing $4 gallon or more, workers are feeling the pain when it comes to commuting, meeting with clients around town, going to conferences, or even looking for a job.

  • A gallon of gas costs $4.11 for Carisa in Illinois, so in addition to carpooling more, she has to be very selective about which meetings and marketing events she absolutely must attend for work, and she said she’s still not getting to all of them. She’s reconsidering her attendance at some out of town conferences. She cannot reach her clients downtown without a car, so driving is a must for her.
  • An anonymous contributor from Northern California, where gas is $4.17 per gallon, is looking for a job and said the high gas prices are limiting the search.
  • Faced with $4.50 for a gallon of gas, Umi in Hawaii recently started carpooling the three-hour round-trip commute with a coworker. Even though the coworker’s shift ends an hour later, she “sacrifice[s] a little sleep and the personal convenience of leaving on my time table” to save money. Public buses are unreliable and intermittent in her hometown, and filling up just 3/4 of her tank costs more than $60.

A consistent theme throughout these stories is that transportation choices can help people and communities cope with rising gas prices. We’ve heard from people who are using public transportation or biking to work – or to look for work, for those who are unemployed – as driving becomes more expensive.

Part of Smart Growth America’s work is helping great communities have more low cost options for getting around when gas prices get too high, but we need to hear from you to do it. How much does gas cost in your area? What are you doing to cope with the high prices of gas? If you don’t drive often, or at all, how do you get around? Smart Growth America is helping more people have the option of shorter drives and more ways to get around when they want it. Click here to tell us your story.

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Coordinated transportation investments for a stronger economy in Louisiana

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Did you know that in one year congestion in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans regions cost residents $898 million in wasted fuel, time and productivity? Or that in 2009 congestion cost the freight trucking industry $350 million in lost productivity and fuel costs in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas?

Smart Growth America’s coalition member the Center for Planning Excellence, has released a new policy brief about better transportation options for southern Louisiana. Connected and Ready to Compete, draws on data, maps, testimonials and case studies to continue making the case for enhanced transportation options between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. This brief, the second in a series of three, follows the first report by specifically addressing why coordinated transportation investments and planning are economically and financially beneficial for the super region. Analyzing job centers, gas prices, national trends and regional opportunities, this report shows businesses, industries and local governments how better transportation coordination can benefit them.

Click here for more information from the Center for Planning Excellence >>

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Working for better transportation options in Washington state

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A new campaign in Washington is fighting to improve transportation for people across the state. Transportation for Washington, a project launched this week by Smart Growth America’s coalition partners Futurewise and the Transportation Choices Coalition, is calling for better repair and maintenance of roads across the state as well as more transportation choices for Washingtonians. These transportation spending strategies – which are in line with many of Smart Growth America’s recent recommendations for Washington – create jobs, spur economic growth and improve Washington’s transportation system at the same time.

Roger Millar, Director of Smart Growth America’s Leadership Institute, discussed these same issues with Ross Reynolds on KUOW-94.9 Seattle’s The Conversation earlier this week. Together with Mike Ennis, Director of the Center for Transportation at the Washington Policy Center, Millar discussed the state of Washington’s transportation system and how the state can get more out of their transportation dollars:

Funding for public transportation is currently a hot topic in Washington state. A bill recently introduced to the state legislature would allow local transit agencies to seek funding to finance public transit projects. According to the Washington Transportation Commission, Washington currently has over $200 billion in unfunded transportation projects – and that need is growing.

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Voters agree: U.S. would benefit from better roads, improved public transportation options

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A new survey by the Rockefeller Foundation about transportation infrastructure has found that two out of three voters say making improvements to the country’s transportation infrastructure is very important, and most voters say that in its current state the nation’s transportation system is barely adequate according to.

The new survey, released yesterday, finds that there is wide agreement among voters – even across partisan lines – that leaders in Washington should seek common ground. Nowhere is this more true, the survey finds, than with legislation related to the country’s transportation infrastructure. Voters want better and safer roads and more public transportation options, widely agreeing that the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved public transportation system.

Moreover, few believe that current government spending in this area is efficient and wise, and voters welcome a range of reforms in how transportation projects are financed. At the same time, as is the case with many spending-related issues today, voters are unwilling to personally pay for additional funding of national transportation projects. While wide support exists for encouraging more private investment, imposing penalties on over-budget projects, and establishing a National Infrastructure Bank, there is very little support for increasing the federal gas tax or increasing tolls on interstate highways and bridges.

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New profiles provide a closer look at state transportation investments

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A new report out today from Smart Growth America analyzes how all 50 states invested their flexible transportation funds from 2009’s American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The report examines what projects each state used its funds for, and whether those projects created as many jobs as possible.

Transportation projects create jobs in the short term but can also create the foundation for a stronger economy in the long term – particularly if those projects repair existing roadways or create public transportation options. As Newsweek’s David A. Graham explains:

It’s not enough just to inject money into infrastructure, because not all transportation funding is created equal—or at least, it doesn’t create jobs at an equal rate. As any infrastructure policy wonk can tell you, money spent on fixing up existing systems or building mass transit delivers more jobs, and faster, than building new highways.

Smart Growth America’s new report found that many states didn’t invest their funds this way and in doing so missed a significant opportunity to create more jobs. As a companion to that report, Smart Growth America has released state-specific recommendations for states looking for ways to improve their transportation investments.

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Recent Lessons from the Stimulus: Transportation Funding and Job Creation

Smart Growth America analyzes states’ investments in infrastructure to determine whether they made the best use of their spending based on job creation numbers. “Recent Lessons from the Stimulus: Transportation Funding and Job Creation” evaluates how successful states have been in creating jobs with their flexible $26.6 billion of transportation funds from the American Reinvestment … Continued

Economic development Transportation

If The Onion covered last week’s TIGER 2 announcements

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Kittery-Portsmouth Memorial Bridge, originally uploaded by cmh2315fl.

If The Onion were covering last week’s TIGER 2 announcements, the headline would be: “DOT to replace the deteriorating Kittery-Portsmouth Memorial Bridge; other 70,997 bridges out of luck.”

Serious policy analysts don’t talk like that, but in fact the US Department of Transportation rates 12 percent (71,000) of the nations’ bridges as “structurally deficient,” which means that a bridge has a major defect in its support structure or its deck is cracking and deteriorating.

TIGER 2 will repair of three (3) of them.

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HUD, DOT, EPA and White House announce "unprecedented collaboration" supporting sustainable communities to "create good jobs today"

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Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, at a press conference on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities today.

Leaders of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House joined together today to discuss the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a joint effort between the three agencies to use taxpayer money more efficiently by coordinating federal investments to meet multiple economic, environmental, and community objectives with each dollar spent. This week, the Partnership has awarded a combined $400 million to communities across the country to help plan and build sustainable communities. Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, called this an “unprecedented collaboration.”

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DOT and HUD Grants Connect Housing, Employment, Transportation and Economic Development

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The U.S. Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) jointly announced today the award of $68 million to 62 communities across the country for projects that integrate affordable housing, create more good jobs and support better public transportation options.

HUD’s Sustainable Communities Challenge Grants and DOT’s TIGER II Planning Grants are the latest examples of interagency federal programs that aim to create economically robust and sustainable communities through better transportation, housing and development coordination – helping communities make themselves even stronger through a more thoughtful use of every available dollar for their local economy.

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