[Senate Hearing 117-857]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-857
ADVANCING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION UNDER THE BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE LAW
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING THE BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE LAW AND THE POTENTIAL FOR JOB
CREATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
__________
MARCH 15, 2022
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available at: https://www.govinfo.gov/
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-682 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman
JACK REED, Rhode Island PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
JON TESTER, Montana MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
RAPHAEL G. WARNOCK, Georgia KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
STEVE DAINES, Montana
Laura Swanson, Staff Director
Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director
Elisha Tuku, Chief Counsel
Dan Sullivan, Republican Chief Counsel
Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk
Shelvin Simmons, IT Director
Pat Lally, Hearing Clerk
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2022
Page
Opening statement of Chairman Brown.............................. 1
Prepared statement....................................... 31
Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:
Senator Toomey............................................... 3
Prepared statement....................................... 32
WITNESSES
Joanna M. Pinkerton, President and CEO, Central Ohio Transit
Authority...................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Toomey........................................... 50
Senator Sinema........................................... 50
Collie Greenwood, Interim General Manager and CEO, Metropolitan
Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority................................ 8
Prepared statement........................................... 35
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Toomey........................................... 51
Senator Sinema........................................... 52
Greg Regan, President, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO. 10
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Sinema........................................... 52
Dorothy Moses Schulz, Adjunct Fellow, The Manhattan Institute.... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Randal O'Toole, Director, Thoreau Institute...................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 46
(iii)
ADVANCING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION UNDER THE BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE LAW
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TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met at 2:31 p.m., via Webex and in room 538,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sherrod Brown, Chairman of
the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN
Chairman Brown. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and
Urban Affairs will come to order.
Welcome. The hearing, as we generally are doing, is in
hybrid format. Three witnesses are in person; two are virtual.
Members have the option to appear either in person or
virtually.
Ohioans know how we let our infrastructure languish for far
too long. President after President promised infrastructure
investment, promised investment in public transit. President
after President failed, and this Congress failed until
President Biden and until we have a new Senate.
Some of the most important work we have done this Congress
in the Banking, Housing Committee is writing the most
significant investment ever in public transit under the
bipartisan infrastructure law. It is not just about the
numbers; it is about what this investment will do, how this
will matter in people's lives. It will mean transit agencies
can run more buses and trains, more often, in more
neighborhoods.
Last year, Darryl Haley with Cincinnati Metro testified at
our first hearing of the year on transit. This is our first one
since the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed. He talked
about one worker in a restaurant in suburban Cincinnati. She
had to spend her entire day's paycheck on Uber to get to work
because her regular bus did not run on Sundays and her employer
said, you have to show up to work on Sunday. She could not miss
her shift without risking that job. The bus did not come when
she needed it. It prevented an entire day's hard work from
paying off. It happens to her almost every single week.
Multiply that times hundreds, times thousands, times tens of
thousands of low-income workers.
With the infrastructure bill, we have the potential to
change the lives of workers like her. We can run buses on
Sunday. We can run trains more often. We can add routes. We can
add stops. It will make it faster and easier for people who
already use public transit to get to work. People who work
long, hard days on their feet too often have to take 45-minute,
2 buses to get home and are dog tired when they are trying to
care for their families.
It is going to open up new job opportunities when people
are not limited by where the bus or the train runs. It is going
to make subways and buses and streetcars a viable option for
the first time for millions of new riders. Right now, so many
families feel the pain of high gas prices because of Russia's
attack on Ukraine. They have no choice but to pay those high
prices because they have to get to work, they have to get to
school, they have to get to the grocery store. If there is a
reliable bus or train, workers will not have to choose between
paying for gas or making rent.
It is going to make such a difference, especially in so
many communities that have not had reliable transit. It is the
Black and Brown communities who have been historically cutoff
from job centers. It is rural workers, where walking is not an
option. For our nation's seniors, a van or a bus from the local
transit service is a lifeline to the doctor, for dialysis
treatment, to the grocery store, to church.
Because of the work we did on this Committee, not only are
we going to run buses more often; they will be cleaner, they
will be newer, they will be safer buses. One of our witnesses
today showed me some of those buses in Columbus several months
ago.
More communities are going to be able to get new state-of-
the-art, zero-emission buses on the road. It is going to fight
climate change. It is going to clean up the air in our
communities. The Administration is already accepting
applications for the zero-emission bus grants we passed.
I have seen how Ohio agencies like Laketran and SARTA and
COTA are leading the country in deploying these pollution-free
buses. Over the coming year, we will see them in communities
all over my State and Georgia and all over this country. We
will make sure that these workers get the training they need to
work on these new buses. On this Committee and under this
President, workers will always, always have a seat at the
table.
I want to thank the members of our Committee for their work
to get this done. Republican Ranking Member Toomey and I do not
see eye to eye on many issues, as we know, but we were able to
reach agreement to reauthorize Federal Transit Administration
programs. We can both be proud that cities, the largest
metropolitan areas in our States, cities like Cleveland and
Philadelphia, can replace railcars that date back literally to
the Carter administration.
Our Housing and Transit Subcommittee Chair, Tina Smith, and
the Subcommittee's Ranking Member, Senator Rounds from South
Dakota, did great work to improve rural transit and tribal
transit. Senator Menendez and Senator Reed continue to be
leaders in fighting for a fair share of funds for transit,
making sure that that historic 20 percent figure is met or
exceeded, and we exceeded it. Senator Tester, Senator Warner,
Senator Sinema played a key role in ensuring the Committee's
transit title moved forward in the bipartisan negotiations,
working with the Republican members of the bipartisan group.
Senator Warner and Senator Van Hollen fought to reauthorize
funds for America's subway, the
Washington, DC, metro system, and Senator Van Hollen's
legislation to improve safety plans gives workers a stronger
voice in safety matters. Senators Warnock and Ossoff helped us
fight for better bus rapid transit and better planning. And
Senator Cortez Masto contributed provisions to link
transportation planning with housing needs. I want to thank
Senator Warren and other members of our caucus who have
continued to advocate for zero-emission buses.
After the difficult times of the pandemic, the future for
public transit and for infrastructure is finally brighter. I
will spend the coming months working with cities and townships
and counties and villages in Ohio to make sure every community
knows all the opportunities available to them to improve their
transit systems.
Today, after meeting with some national transit officials,
I met the transit leader in Perry County, a rural county
southeast of Columbus. They do not have a huge bus system, but
they have essential transportation for people getting food, for
people to get dialysis, for people that want to go to church,
that need the kinds of things in their lives that only public
transit can help them do. I know many of my colleagues will do
the same around the State.
I look forward to hearing from witnesses about the
potential for job growth and economic job creation, economic
growth, that these new provisions will unleash.
Senator Toomey.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY
Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to our
witnesses.
Today's hearing is about the public transit component of
the bipartisan infrastructure law. Mr. Chairman, thank you for
pointing out the cooperative efforts that we engaged in. It
appears to me the outcome worked out pretty well for you
because there was a lot in the bill that I do not really agree
with.
As I have said repeatedly, we should not pay for an
infrastructure package by borrowing billions and billions more
dollars. Yet, that is precisely what happened with this law. It
authorized so much new spending that $118 billion had to be
transferred from the Treasury's general fund to the Highway
Trust Fund, which is supposed to pay for mass transit and
highway construction with gas tax revenue.
Now some of my Democratic colleagues would make the Highway
Trust Fund shortfall worse by suspending the Federal gas tax,
reasoning that the solution to high gas prices is not more
supply but rather more debt. I would suggest if we want to help
commuters and families suffering from inflation we can start by
reversing the Administration's actions which keep us from using
much of our own fossil energy.
But, back to infrastructure. Federal spending should be
driven by a reasoned assessment of our nation's needs. However,
the bipartisan infrastructure law seems to have been driven
more by political imperatives. The bill funneled billions of
dollars to projects that the private sector has been more than
willing to fund, such as ferries and electric vehicle charging
stations. Transit was given $108.1 billion over a 5-year
period. To put that number into perspective, it is almost twice
what transit got in the last surface transportation
reauthorization.
And this staggering sum will be on top of the nearly $85
billion given to transit, the vast majority of it characterized
as emergency spending, to offset COVID losses from March '20 to
March '21, just 1 year. In fact, this nearly $85 billion in
funding that the Federal Government gave to transit agencies
exceeded both the annual operating and capital costs of all the
transit agencies in the United States combined in 2019.
And at the time, my Democratic colleagues tried to justify
paying for more than 100 percent of transit agencies' budgets
by saying that transit systems could collapse from declines in
ridership and State and local tax revenue. But as we know,
State and local tax collection set a new record in 2020. And
despite an all-time record amount of revenue collected by State
and local governments, Congress gave more than $850 billion to
State and local governments.
Worse, billions of dollars will go to transit agencies that
were facing ridership challenges well before COVID. Since
reaching a high of 10.7 billion trips in 2014, transit
ridership has steadily fallen. It fell by almost 8 percent in
2019, and the last 2 years saw even steeper declines. Ridership
fell at some agencies by over 70 percent.
Some estimates predict that ridership will never fully
return to prepandemic levels. Agency leaders in New York,
Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC, have all said many of the
riders will not return. So why give away still more taxpayer
money to agencies serving fewer riders? Well, a number of
advocates suggest the solution to falling ridership is fare-
free transit. Advocates claim this will increase ridership and
on time performance, achieve social equity, reduce operator
assaults and fare evasion. I suppose one way to reduce fare
evasion, which is really theft of services, is to never charge
a price in the first place.
But as Milton Friedman helped to publicize, there is no
such thing as a free lunch. In my view, just as car owners pay
a Federal gas tax to support highways, transit riders should
have to pay something to contribute their fair share, too, as
should local communities. Transit systems, after all, serve a
city or a metropolitan area, not the entire country. That is
why Congress has traditionally helped to pay for capital needs
but not operating expenses. If New
York or Washington, DC, cannot or will not pay for their
transit systems, why should Federal taxpayers?
Now there is one other issue we must discuss, and that is
the rising rate of crime in mass transit systems. Despite
having far fewer riders, New York, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia
have all seen spikes in transit crime. There were 461 felony
assaults in New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority
last year. That is the highest number since 1997. MTA riders
are confronting fearful conditions. We have seen the news
stories--hammer attacks, stabbings, multiple people pushed onto
subway tracks, including in front of oncoming trains, with one
woman tragically killed. Even New York City's mayor, a former
cop, says he does not feel safe on the subway.
Today, we will hear from two witnesses on the ongoing
systemic challenges facing transit agencies that were not
addressed in the bipartisan infrastructure law. Dr. Dorothy
Shulz, a retired transit police captain, will testify that
transit systems must address security issues that are putting
rider safety at risk. And Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau
Institute will testify about the long-term decline in ridership
that began well before COVID.
We have seen time and again that throwing extraordinary
sums of taxpayer monies without serious reforms encourages
transit systems to maintain the status quo. I look forward to
hearing from our witnesses and discussing the question: Does
mass transit continue to make sense in every U.S. city at its
current scale?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey.
I will introduce today's witnesses. Ms. Joanna Pinkerton is
President and CEO of the Central Ohio Transit Authority,
serving the Columbus region. Ms. Pinkerton is a licensed
professional engineer with a history of implementing solutions
that capitalize on Ohio's rich legacy of transportation
manufacturing and technical resources. Ms. Pinkerton joined
COTA in April 2018.
Welcome.
Senator Ossoff will introduce Mr. Greenwood. And I believe
that Senator Warnock will have some comments later. He had a
scheduling conflict but will join us later.
Senator Ossoff.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is a
pleasure to welcome Mr. Collie Greenwood to the Senate and to
the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
I want to take a moment, Mr. Chairman, and acknowledge the
tragic passing of MARTA's CEO and General Manager, Jeffrey
Parker, who passed away this January. Jeff championed MARTA. He
championed accessible public transportation in the State of
Georgia. He created an expansive vision for transit in metro
Atlanta. He leaves a tremendous legacy that Collie now will
continue. And though Jeff is no longer with us, his work and
his vision are sustained and alive with us, and we will work
together to realize as much of it as we can. And if I might,
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the Committee and the Senate, extend
our condolences to the whole MARTA family during this difficult
time.
Following Mr. Parker's passing in January, Mr. Greenwood
was selected as MARTA's Interim CEO and General Manager. He
brings more than 30 years of experience in transit. He served
as Chief Service Officer at North America's third largest
transit system, the Toronto Transit Commission, overseeing bus,
rail, accessible transit, station services, transit security
and maintenance.
And in this interim role, Mr. Greenwood will now carry the
torch forward from Mr. Parker, to lead the largest and most
ambitious expansion and modernization program since MARTA's
founding over 40 years, an expansion and modernization that
would not be possible without this Committee and your support,
Mr. Chairman.
So, Mr. Greenwood, welcome to the Senate.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
Greg Regan is President of the Transportation Trades
Department of the AFL-CIO. He is the elected President of the
Transportations Trades Department, a labor organization
consisting of 36 unions that represent workers in all areas of
transportation. He collaborates with TDD's affiliated unions to
fight for long-term investment in transportation. He works to
ensure transportation jobs are safe and secure and to protect
the rights working people have to a union voice.
Dr. Dorothy Moses Schulz is joining us remotely. She is an
adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute Policy and Public
Safety Initiatives. She is a professor emerita at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice. She was the first woman captain in
the Metro North Commuter Railroad Police Department.
Mr. Randal O'Toole, who is joining us remotely, is Director
of the Thoreau Institute. He previously was a senior fellow at
the Cato Institute, specializing in land use in transportation
initiatives.
Ms. Pinkerton, please begin. Thank you for joining us.
STATEMENT OF JOANNA M. PINKERTON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTRAL
OHIO TRANSIT AUTHORITY
Ms. Pinkerton. Thank you, Chair Brown and also Members of
the Committee. Today, I appreciate the opportunity to testify
here on the enormous opportunities that we see in central Ohio
under this bipartisan infrastructure law.
As previously mentioned, the legislation represents a long
overdue commitment to repairing our transportation networks
and, I believe, repurposing them for a future economy in ways
that we may not even realize yet. It addresses many of the ill
effects that we are seeing, everything from congestion to
pollution, even intentionally dividing communities in our
historical past. And our transportation networks have not kept
pace with the rapidly evolving changes in how we live, how we
work, how we do business, and they do not yet account for
changes in lifestyle, including comments that have been made
about declining ridership.
I think there are existing advancements in new technology
on the horizon which will have a direct impact and can move
goods and people in a different way. With the new
infrastructure funding, we can actually begin to shift our old
ways of thinking to fix this.
Ohio's two Senators played a central role in drafting this
transformative legislation through listening at the local level
and raising awareness of the investment needed to support our
Nation's economy at this time. So I would like to share a few
examples of how the Central Ohio Transit Authority can put
these funds to use for the economy in central Ohio and the
entire State.
Central Ohio is a region of approximately 2.2 million
people, with a unique situation where we are expected to grow
to 3 million very soon. We know that, through smart growth and
planning principles, transit can build communities which lead
to a higher quality of life built around affordable housing,
equitable access to amenities and employment and job
opportunities.
Our transformational LinkUS initiative is exactly that.
Entities across our entire central Ohio region are
collaborating on LinkUS to address our growth in a more
sustainably through high capacity, high frequency transit
corridors, which will support more dense, transit oriented
development, and also connect to our rural communities through
highway and surface transportation investments. Two of our
planned corridors are already in the capital investment grant
funding pipeline at the FTA. A third corridor will be submitted
later this year and an expectation of two more to follow. We
worked diligently to align these projects with the outcomes
expected in the CIG program as written, and we expect that
LinkUS will benefit greatly from the infrastructure bill's
improvements, specifically to the Small Starts portion of that
program, which addresses communities of our size.
At COTA, we also understand and take seriously our role in
protecting lives through improving air quality in our region.
Our industry knows that to have a lasting impact, we must
commit to converting transit vehicles to clean fuel. At COTA,
we are already on track to be completely diesel-free by 2025.
That is a commitment we have made in the past with our local
capital programs.
And we are preparing a path forward to net carbon-neutral.
Last year, with the help of the Federal Low-No grant program,
we proudly deployed our first electric transit vehicles, and we
went a step further with our local energy providers to ensure
that they are going to be powered by entirely renewable energy.
The FTA just announced last week more than $1 billion in
competitive funding to assist us and my colleagues with other
ways to accelerate what we are already doing at the local level
with our local funding.
On a workforce front--I think this is important to mention
our frontline operators in our fixed route, our paratransit,
and our microtransit are essential to our mission. The transit
industry is facing a workforce shortage like every other sector
of the American economy. At COTA, we did not lay off a single
transit operator during the pandemic. Yet, the current labor
shortage has forced us to make service reductions. We are short
almost 20 percent of the operators necessary to operate our
fixed route service alone, putting a burden on our community
and, as mentioned before, increasing the demands for frontline
workers, who cover third shift, late shift, late night service,
and weekend service. We are working on innovative recruiting
and training programs, and we encourage any workforce
retraining funds to be made available to transit agencies to
make sure that we scale up, retool, and reimagine the workforce
of the future.
I would like to mention that this law will not only improve
the condition of transit agencies; it will improve the
condition of the roadways that we run on, and I believe it can
transform how we use them. It has the potential to dramatically
improve safety and increase capacity, using our existing system
when it is repurposed by using more density, shared rides.
In central Ohio, most of our road capacity can actually
meet our future demand if we invest in emerging technology,
connected vehicles. And I believe that the shared vehicle
environment has the potential to make us both safer and more
efficient. Our vehicle systems are increasingly generating more
and more data, more than a terabyte a day, and this is a huge
opportunity now that we can fund software and technology
improvements through infrastructure. We are not just funding
the concrete and the steel and the roads and the vehicles
anymore. We are funding the systems that can connect them.
We believe in central Ohio we bring a unique approach to
serving our region. Our mission is to connect people to
prosperity through innovation, dedication, and teamwork. We are
one of the few transit agencies that has seen an increase in
ridership year over year prior to the pandemic because we
understand that transit has to meet the needs of the economy
and the people it is serving in the ways that they are
changing.
We think this bill has made huge and generous strides, but
it is up to us from a policy and administration and regulatory
perspective to assess how we can reinvest and reimagine those
systems through the policy applications. I believe the future
work trends are here already and we have generations of workers
who are ready to join the workforce in central Ohio through new
systems invested in by this infrastructure bill.
And we want to make sure that we have the American
lifestyle and--quite frankly, this is not something that a
transit CEO says very often--the pursuit of happiness of the
American lifestyle. My community is going through a huge
transformation at the moment, and we believe that this
infrastructure bill can help support us to make sure we support
the economy of the future.
Thank you, Chair.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ms. Pinkerton.
Mr. Greenwood, welcome.
STATEMENT OF COLLIE GREENWOOD, INTERIM GENERAL MANAGER AND CEO,
METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY
Mr. Greenwood. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Brown
and Ranking Member Toomey and distinguished Members of the
Committee. I am Collie Greenwood, Interim General Manager and
CEO of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Agency in
Atlanta, known as MARTA. I am honored to have the opportunity
to appear alongside my transit agency colleagues and share our
experience at MARTA and future expansion efforts made possible
in part by the Congress's passage of the bipartisan
infrastructure law.
Serving MARTA in this role has been the culmination for me
of 35 years of experience in the transit industry. I worked my
way through college as a transit bus operator. At first, it was
just a job that paid the bills, but at some point the mission
of getting people where they needed to go became a part of me.
I rose to Chief Service Officer at the Toronto Transit
Commission, and I guided that agency through several
transformational initiatives. In 2019, I was personally
recruited by MARTA's former CEO, Jeff Parker, because of the
alignment of our vision for public transit. Jeff spoke about it
as lines and dots, the lines being the transit and the dots
being the communities and places that we serve.
MARTA is the largest public transit agency in the Southeast
and one of the largest in the country, providing bus, heavy
rail, paratransit, and streetcar services. And it has a robust
transit-oriented development program that incorporates
affordable housing and equitable access, driving economic
growth and development around our rail stations.
We have eagerly embarked on three expansion projects that I
will briefly describe today as we hope that they will be direct
beneficiaries of funding and policy changes made possible by
the bipartisan infrastructure law. These expansion projects
will benefit from a key change to the Small Starts program
which, as you know, increases project eligibility from $300
million to $400 million. And I would like to personally thank
Senators Warnock and Ossoff for their leadership on securing
that change that is already having an impact for MARTA.
One of the first initiatives I worked on when I arrived at
MARTA was a series of improvements to bus amenities and a focus
on bus service enhancements and expansion. As a former bus
operator, I understand the importance of reliable bus service
and that while rail may get most of the attention it is the bus
that is the backbone of public transit and bus service,
particularly bus rapid transit, has the potential to be
transformative for a community.
With that in mind, I am pleased to share that the Clayton
Southlake Bus Rapid Transit project has advanced to the project
development phase of the Small Starts program. The estimated
$338 million project will provide high-capacity transit service
connecting College Park Rail Station in the southern part of
metro Atlanta, that is close to the airport, to several key
destinations in Clayton County, including major commercial
corridors, the hospital, and the city of Riverdale Town Center.
As the first BRT in Clayton County, the project will feature 13
new branded stations with off-board fare collection, 10 branded
electric vehicles and associated charging infrastructure, and
the installation of transit signal priority equipment at key
intersections.
Another one of MARTA's highest ridership bus routes is
along Campbellton Road in southwest Atlanta. In partnership
with the city of Atlanta, we are investing in high-capacity
transit to improve connectivity, accessibility, and mobility
along this important corridor. The transit and transit-oriented
development investments planned for this vibrant part of the
city will support the overall economic and community
development sought by the established neighborhoods along the
route.
One of the exciting parts of bus rapid transit is the
planned use of electric buses to travel through dense urban
corridors, leaving no emissions and no noise in their wake.
MARTA's first six zero-emission buses will reduce our fleet
emissions by approximately 935 short tons of greenhouse gases
while also reducing harmful fine particle matter that is linked
to a variety of health risks. The BIL's increase in funding for
the new Low-No emission bus grant program will help MARTA
accelerate the transition of our fleet to zero-emission buses.
We are also working with the city of Atlanta on the
transformation of our largest and busiest train station, Five
Points, which sits at the heart of the city. MARTA will be
seeking a RAISE grant and new discretionary grants to support
the $150 million redevelopment of the station that is the
intersection of 4 rail lines and a transfer hub for dozens of
intercity bus routes that serve major Government and
educational facilities, jobs centers, and Atlanta's vibrant
arts and cultural scene.
In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
present to the Committee today. I am very proud of the progress
that we have made in the Atlanta region, including in very
challenging circumstances while we continue to provide service
during the ongoing pandemic.
I am grateful for the leadership of the Georgia
congressional delegation and their role in the passage of the
bipartisan infrastructure law. Senators Ossoff and Warnock have
provided steadfast support of MARTA and the communities that we
serve. I am confident that the passage of this monumental law
will contribute to our sustained growth as we expand in cost
effective and practical ways, with great support from President
Biden, USDOT Secretary Buttigieg, and Federal Transit
Administrator Nuria Fernandez.
Thank you very much, Chairman Brown and Ranking Member
Toomey, for this historic legislation and all that it will do
for the people and communities of the Atlanta Metro Region.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood.
Mr. Regan, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF GREG REGAN, PRESIDENT, TRANSPORTATION TRADES
DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO
Mr. Regan. Thank you, Chairman Brown and Ranking Member
Toomey, for inviting me to testify today about the historic and
long overdue investments in the bipartisan infrastructure law
made in America's public transportation and, most importantly,
in its frontline workforce. I am speaking today on behalf of 36
unions who collectively represent the majority of those
workers. They include bus and rail transit operators, station
agents, car cleaners, mechanics, and other frontline
professionals.
Today, we may hear from some who argue that investments in
public transit are a waste of taxpayer dollars. We may hear
that public transit only serves New York City while
disregarding the millions of Americans in rural, small, and
medium-sized cities who have always counted on public transit
and who continue to count on it today. We may hear that the
pandemic has doomed public transit.
I want to be clear on one fact. Those claims are wrong.
They are short-sighted, and they ignore the critical role of
transit for millions of working people who rely on these
services for most of their transportation needs. That is truer
today than any time in our modern history.
The American middle class has been under attack for decades
while the wealthy continue to get wealthier. Nearly two-thirds
of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck, and the pandemic
placed even greater strain on their household budgets, which
were already stretched thin, to the point of cruelty in one of
the richest nations on the planet. And now because of
historically high gas prices, your constituents will have to
look their families in the eye while they decide whether to put
gas in their car, food on their tables, pay their utilities,
hire childcare, all while dealing with all the other pressures
that unchecked corporate greed and rampant inequality and the
erosion of worker rights have placed on their lives.
Some might incorrectly respond by saying that the cost of
gas is President Biden's fault. To those listening to this
hearing at home, please know that these are disingenuous claims
that are only meant to prey on your fears so that wealthy
corporations and their allies in Congress can profit
economically and politically while the American people work
harder yet get poorer.
I say all this to make one point. It would be a grave
mistake to undermine the workers in this industry, the
essential service they provide to commuters in urban and rural
communities alike, and the pocketbooks of every single American
by turning our back on the benefits delivered by public
transit.
There is only one solution to drive the prepandemic growth
we saw in this industry: more service, better service, and the
kind of real long-term vision delivered by President Biden, the
members of this Committee, and the bill. Not only did the bill
make unprecedented investments in public transportation, it
also included two of transportation labor's biggest priorities,
to protect workers from assault and to create new good jobs and
clean transit.
Two years ago, TTD's past President, Larry Willis,
testified before this Committee about the horrific safety
conditions faced by transit workers on the job every single
day, a problem that has only grown worse during the pandemic,
as has previously been noted. Thanks to the hard work of this
Committee, Senator Van Hollen, transportation labor, and the
unwavering support of President Biden, we will finally be able
to turn the tide and ensure safety for our workers. The bill
included critical reforms that require for the first time that
the Federal Transit Administration collect accurate data on
transit workforce assaults, reform its public transportation
agency safety plan process to include worker voices, and
incorporate measures to reduce the risk of assault in every
single transit system in this country, and update its national
safety plan to address the risk of assault and other public
health concerns.
While we wait for these new safety requirements to be
implemented, it is deeply painful to witness transit workers
still facing the threat of assaults and other unsafe conditions
that place them in harm's way at the workplace. Last week, I
spoke with Administrator Fernandez and her team at the FTA and
am confident they are working as quickly as possible to ensure
that no transit worker will ever again wake up wondering if
today is the day that they wind up in the hospital or worse
because their employers did not protect them.
Second, the bill clearly illustrates that innovative new
technologies, and the creation and maintenance of good union
jobs, go hand in hand when good policy ties it together. Chair
Brown fought to ensure that massive new investments in the low
or no emission vehicle program were tied to truly historic
investments in the incumbent and future workforce.
Specifically, the bill requires transit agencies to show
the workforce impacts of the transition to zero-emission buses,
and it also addresses one of the largest existing skills gaps
in this industry by providing millions of dedicated funding for
workforce training. Tying workforce training, including labor
management training programs and apprenticeships, to the
adoption of new technologies will ensure a high-road labor
model that provides good union jobs and is consistent with the
Department of Transportation's new innovative principles which
make clear that workers will have a voice at the table in the
adoption of new tech.
Last week, the FTA issued its first funding opportunity for
the revised Low-No program. Thanks to Senator Brown's clear
vision for workers and FTA Administrator Fernandez's commitment
to workforce training, the FTA will guarantee that the training
needs of the transit maintenance workforce will keep pace with
new technology. Their careers can grow along with the
advancements in tech. We thank both of you for your important
work on this truly historic issue and its huge improvement for
transit workers.
Again, thank you both for having me, and I look forward to
answering any questions you may have.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Mr. Regan.
Ms. Schulz is recognized from New York.
STATEMENT OF DOROTHY MOSES SCHULZ, ADJUNCT FELLOW, THE
MANHATTAN INSTITUTE
Ms. Schulz. Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify. Can you hear me? I am showing as----
Chairman Brown. We can hear you perfectly, Dr. Schulz. Go
ahead.
Ms. Schulz. OK. So I am going to skip over most of my
resume. You heard it. And as you know, I was in policing, and I
have worked as a consultant for a number of transit agencies as
well as having done safety and security audits for the FTA.
My testimony is on crime, decriminalization of fare
evasion, and the effects of fare-free transit on public order.
I am very glad to follow Mr. Regan because I, too, am concerned
with worker security and I know that is an issue for all the
transit worker unions.
Transit systems in many cities--I can name them quickly. I
am from New York; I talk fast. New York, Denver, Los Angeles,
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, amongst
those, defunded police, replacing them with homeless outreach
and mental health workers and with Ambassadors who, rather than
issue fare evasion summonses, explained to fare beaters how to
pay their fare.
A recent study of 115 agencies found that 90 percent
reported complaints about homeless riders. Most believe this
has a negative effect on ridership and that it has increased
during COVID when some systems lost more than 70 percent of
their commuters. Amid this disorder, many stations have become
de facto homeless shelters and drug injectionsites. Systems are
finding fentanyl smokers in restrooms and on buses and trains,
raising security and health concerns for riders and especially
for employees.
Destination-less riders and thieves and grifters are not
new to transit, but passively allowing them to remain is new.
There must be greater steps to maintain public order in
transit. This is reflected in the broken windows theory:
curtailing little offenses before they become big offenses,
whether on the street, in a mall, or in a transit facility.
Broken windows policing has been incorrectly described as
the opposite of community policing, one tough, the other soft.
This is a false dichotomy. Assuring community viability is not
tough or soft. It is maintaining order to keep people safe and
secure, and without it, we are threatening patrons and
employees.
Systems have also lessened their focus on fare evaders.
They are responding to studies--many of the same cities I
previously mentioned, so I will not provide a list--that
indicate that young minority males are disproportionately cited
for nonpayment. None of the studies, though, speculate whether
the different levels of citations indicate different levels of
fare compliance.
But to talk about fare enforcement may be obsolete. A case
in Maryland and one currently on appeal in the State of
Washington are challenging the whole concept of fare sweeps and
whether demanding proof of payment is a search under the Fourth
Amendment. If these cases--if the Washington case is decided
the same as the Maryland case, systems are likely to further
curtail enforcement, effectively making transit free even if
fares are not officially eliminated.
There are also advocates who would see nothing wrong with
this. Fare-free transit used to be called free transit before
people realized that someone, even if not the riders, would be
paying for it. Advocates believe fare-free transit will
increase equity and decrease pollution. They rarely, if ever,
discuss security.
On March 4th, using ARPA funds, Boston embarked on a fare-
free transit experiment on 3 bus lines. I hope they will
include security in their surveys. We know bus riders are
mostly lower-income women and that women increasingly work as
bus operators. Their personal security must be paramount.
In conclusion, transit systems have an obligation to
provide a secure environment. The bipartisan infrastructure law
does not do this in any way although it does finally, as Mr.
Regan indicated, provide for tracking of assaults on employees.
Infrastructure improvements are vital but so is assuring
patrons and employees feel secure in the new or improved
facilities. If transit boards continue to provide shelter to
the unhoused or injectionsites for drug users, riders who can
afford to will find other modes of travel and employees, as we
heard, already in short supply, will find other places to work.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I look
forward to answering any of your questions.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Dr. Schulz.
Mr. O'Toole is recognized from Oregon.
STATEMENT OF RANDAL O'TOOLE, DIRECTOR, THOREAU INSTITUTE
Mr. O'Toole. Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify
today. I am Randal O'Toole, and I am a policy analyst with
nearly 50 years of experience studying transportation and land
use issues.
Today, you have asked how public transit can progress under
the bipartisan infrastructure act. I am afraid I have bad news.
It cannot, and it will not. Public transit has been declining
for more than a century. For most of that time, Federal, State,
and local governments have thrown increasing subsidies at
transit aimed at reversing that decline. The results are a
complete failure.
Since Congress passed the Urban Mass Transportation Act of
1964, taxpayers have spent well over $1.5 trillion subsidizing
transit. Yet, the number of transit trips taken per urban
resident has fallen 40 percent, from 61 in 1964 to just 37 in
2019, the lowest in recorded history. In 2019, transit carried
less than 1 percent of all U.S. passenger travel.
Americans did not reject transit because of some automaker
conspiracy or an irrational love affair with driving. They
stopped riding transit because it is an inferior good. It is
slower and more expensive than driving, and it does not go
where most people want to go. In 2019, people can save money by
driving instead of riding transit because average transit fares
per passenger mile were 20 percent more than Americans spent
per passenger mile driving their cars.
On top of this, subsidies to transit were more than 100
times as much per passenger mile as subsidies to highways. Even
with those subsidies, University of Minnesota researchers
estimate that in 2019 the average resident of one of the
nation's 50 largest urban areas could reach almost twice as
many jobs in a 20-minute auto drive as in a 60-minute transit
trip.
Transit is so inferior, researchers found, that bicycle
riders can reach more jobs in 15 minutes or less than transit
riders in trips of the same length. This makes transit third
class transportation. The researchers found transit was
inferior even in New York City, the city with the best transit
in America.
The pandemic accelerated all the transit--led Americans to
turn away from transit, increased telecommuting,
decentralization of downtown jobs, and movement of residences
to the suburbs and exurbs. The Census Bureau's American
Community Survey found that increased telecommuting led to the
number of people driving alone, bicycling or walking to work in
2020 to each decline by 16 percent, but the number commuting by
transit fell by 41 percent, another sign of transit's
inferiority.
The transit industry claims that transit relieves
congestion, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps low
income people out of poverty and promotes economic development.
I have discussed all of these in my written testimony, but for
now I would just like to address the claim that transit
promotes social justice by helping poor people and that free
transit would be even more socially just. Even low income
people know that transit is inferior. In 2019, only 5 percent
of workers who earned less than $25,000 a year took transit to
work compared with 7 percent of people who earned more than
$75,000 a year.
More than three-fourths of transit subsidies come from
regressive taxes such as sales or property taxes. This means
that 95 percent of low-income people who do not ride transit
disproportionately pay taxes for transit systems that are
disproportionately used by high-income people. That is the very
definition of social injustice. I wonder if free transit
advocates realize how racist they are when they argue that poor
minorities should take third-class transportation while almost
everyone else gets to take first-class transportation.
American cities have a long history of throwing money at
transit for no measurable benefits. The worst case is Los
Angeles, which spent billions building rail transit and lost
five bus riders for every rail rider it gained. Recently opened
rail lines in Charlotte, Minneapolis, Portland, St. Louis, and
other cities also produced no increase in riders. The only real
beneficiaries of these projects are the engineering firms that
designed them and the construction firms that built them.
Transit agencies hope higher gas prices will encourage
people to return to transit, but they will not. Between 1999
and 2011, gas prices nearly tripled after adjusting for
inflation; yet, ridership grew by only 12 percent. That will
not be enough to offset the effects of increased telecommuting,
decentralized of jobs and housing, and people's wariness of
crimes and infectious diseases associated with crowding.
Transit's problem is not a shortage of funds but too much
money, which transit agencies spend at projects aimed at
pleasing politicians, not improving transit ridership. The
bipartisan infrastructure act only made this problem worse. If
the Federal Government must subsidize transit, it should make
subsidies proportional to the fare revenues collected by each
transit agency. That will make transit agencies responsive to
transit riders rather than to engineering and construction
firms that have gotten fat spending Federal transit dollars.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Mr. O'Toole.
Ms. Pinkerton, start with you. You talked about the
population that we think is likely, maybe certain, in the
Columbus region. Part of that growth obviously will result from
Intel's $20 billion semiconductor plant in New Albany, 5,000
building trades workers over 10 years, ultimately creating
10,000 new jobs. We are burying the term Rust Belt in Ohio. How
will COTA and the investments in the infrastructure bill
contribute to that by helping more workers connect to jobs
created by Intel and all of the spinoffs from Intel?
Ms. Pinkerton. Thank you, Chairman, for the question. Just
last Friday, I was invited, with former elected Federal
officials, to the Ohio Business Roundtable, who convened the
officials to look at the entire system. So when you have such
massive investment, when we are already seeing growth by
hundreds of thousands in our community, you have to look at the
entire system. It is a systems engineering problem.
I am really thrilled that COTA is invited to be at the
table, and the topics last Friday were interesting. They were
not things that you would normally think of being the
responsibility of a Federal highway agency or a DOT or a
transit agency: it was about access, affordable housing,
childcare, common themes like food access.
We believe that mobility is the most important component of
building out a new site such as the Intel site. And when I say
mobility, I mean physical and I mean digital. People have to be
able to move, and they have to be able to connect.
We will be part of an overall system. We already know that
you cannot expand the highways enough to relieve congestion and
get all people to the site. We have already built 12 lanes out
that direction, so we are looking at reusing the number of
lanes with more dense development and also with transit being
part of the formula.
COTA intends to use our LinkUS initiative and make sure
that we are looking at the new trends of people coming in and
out of the city to the new site, and where they are coming from
across rural parts of Ohio as well, so that we can digitally
connect the rural transit systems to our high-capacity systems.
It does not mean we have to buy new vehicles. It means we have
to upgrade the software and the hardware systems to make sure
that they can talk to one another.
Chairman Brown. Thanks, Ms. Pinkerton.
Mr. Greenwood, what does faster, better service mean to
your riders?
Mr. Greenwood. To the riders, it means the world. It
actually unlocks potential, unlocks opportunities for people
who normally might not take transit. Having a more robust
transit system that is more reliable, getting people to where
they want to go sooner actually allows them the dream of
chasing the job that they want, living in the places that they
want.
And the aspect of reliability cannot be overlooked. It is
one thing to have a scheduled service but quite another to be
able to stick to it. When people give their word in their daily
lives, it needs to mean something. If they are relying on
public transit, then we need to make sure that our word means
something, too. We only get that when we invest in transit,
making sure that our infrastructure is such that that level of
reliability is absolutely there.
Chairman Brown. Thanks. I think especially of low-income
workers who do not have, frankly, much of a voice in this
Congress, who work all day on their feet all day, and then they
have to take a bus ride home and change buses, and it takes an
hour and 10 minutes to get home, and what better, more
efficient service would mean to them. Thank you.
Mr. Regan, the infrastructure law invests in both zero
emission buses and the workers who operate and maintain those
next generation buses. I have had conversations in Akron and
Canton and Cleveland and Columbus and Cincinnati and probably
seven or eight transit systems in Ohio about that transition.
When companies and agencies adopt new technologies, workers
often get left behind or denied the training that they need.
Are the bipartisan infrastructure law's transit requirements a
good model for including workers in technology transitions?
Walk through how we avoid some of the problems we have seen in
the past, especially when you think about diesel engines to
all-electric buses.
Mr. Regan. Thank you for the question. Yes, I think finally
for the first time in our history we are actually taking the
right approach to workforce training when it comes to transit.
Historically, we have spent less than 1 percent of expenditures
at transit agencies on frontline worker training. This will put
5 percent of that into their overall investment in the people
that are going to be operating these systems. And that is an
important part. We are only going to meet the true promise of
this moment, which is the real investment, if we are actually
growing the workforce along with the expansion of our systems
and improving service. The workforce has to be right along for
the ride.
Chairman Brown. Thank you.
Senator Toomey.
Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. O'Toole, in recent years, the Federal Government was
providing roughly $13 billion per year to subsidize transit. In
2020, they got their $13 billion. And then over the course of
just that year they got another $70 billion, 7-0, on top of the
13.
With the bipartisan infrastructure law and recently passed
omnibus, transit agencies will get another $20.5 billion. And
then on top of that, they will get an additional $87 billion
over the next 4 fiscal years. This, of course, does not include
the hundreds and hundreds of billions that the Federal
Government sent to State and local governments in a year when
they were setting an all-time record for tax revenue
collection.
So my question for you: Are you aware of any kind of
logical, methodical process for determining? Is it needs-based,
or is there some other mechanism that you are aware of for
determining these massive amounts of money?
Mr. O'Toole. No, I do not know of any reason why transit
should have gotten all of that money. Transit, before the
pandemic, was carrying less than 1 percent of passenger travel
and no freight. Transit, during the pandemic, has been carrying
less than a half a percent of passenger travel and no freight.
The main transportation problem that emerged from the
pandemic was a freight problem, a supply chain problem, and
yet, none of the COVID relief money went to aid that supply
chain problem. So by my calculation, about more than 40 percent
of the money went to transit--of the transportation dollars
went to transit.
Senator Toomey. So the U.S. Department of Transportation
has found that there is a backlog of $105.1 billion in deferred
maintenance and replacement needs for mass transit. This is
generally known as the state of good repair needs. Seems to me
that there are project sponsors across the U.S. that are
looking to have the Federal Government now fund light rail,
commuter rail, heavy rail projects amid depressed and uncertain
ridership. Are these transit agencies all making sure that the
money they are getting is first going to deal with the state of
good repair, to bring up to date the deferred maintenance and
the replacement needs that have been identified?
Mr. O'Toole. You know, we have many examples of transit
agencies that had serious deferred maintenance needs and chose
to spend Federal dollars on building new transit instead. There
is the Silver Line in Washington, DC; there is the Green Line
in Boston, many other examples of transit agencies with transit
systems that were breaking down deciding instead to spend money
on new transit.
I think what transit agencies have learned from the
pandemic is that it does not matter if they actually carry any
transit riders. They are still going to get lots of subsidies.
And that is a lesson that is very bad. It tells people that the
important thing is the jobs they create, the construction that
is done. What is not important is whether anybody is actually
carried by them, and so transit agencies have no incentive to
be responsive to rider needs.
Senator Toomey. Let me turn to Dr. Schulz. As I mentioned
in my opening statement, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has
publically admitted to not feeling safe using his own city's
subway, the MTA. Earlier this year, New York District Attorney
Alvin Bragg directed his staff to withhold prosecution of ``low
level'' crimes like fare evasion. The previous DA, Cy Vance,
announced ending criminal prosecution for fare evasion back in
2017.
So we have some years now of experience where, as a sort of
de facto matter, there is kind of a no-fare ridership on the
New York MTA. So at a minimum, it has actually been
decriminalized as a practical matter. What has the experience
been for the New York MTA? What lessons can be drawn from this
history?
Ms. Schulz. One of the lessons is--of course, this is also
true in Brooklyn with DA Gonzalez, where it has been true for a
long time. Manhattan always gets all the attention, but
decriminalizing fare enforcement is nothing new in New York or
anywhere.
I believe the last thing I read, in New York, which has
barriers, turnstiles, fare evasion is up to 40 percent. So you
can only imagine what it is like in systems like Minnesota,
Seattle, Portland, that basically are barrier-free and have a
sign saying, you know, in effect, please remember to pay your
fare.
That is where the decriminalization of the fare enforcement
really comes into play because particularly in these systems
the fare enforcement was really the only sign of order or order
maintenance that existed. And if you do away with fare
enforcement, it is not just the income from your fares, which a
lot of advocates say, well, it is only 10 percent of the fare
box, or 20 percent, although in some cities it is as high as 40
percent.
But what it does is it takes away capable guardians. There
is no reason for people who represent the system to be on the
trains or on the platforms. Now systems are also going more and
more to automated entry and ticket, which means that not only
are there no police or security personnel there are very few
station agents. And so people are really left to their own
devices on the system, and it discourages orderly behavior. It
is not only the $1.20 or the $2.75. It is if enough people see
other people who are not paying they are going to feel why
should they pay, why should anyone pay, and you lose control of
the system.
I think what New York learned is that--it is sort of a
clich?--no good deed goes unpunished. During the pandemic,
because so many homeless people really had nothing--nowhere to
go and there were so few riders, it sort of looked the other
way and let them be.
Now I do not want to single out homeless people. Many of
them are victims. In New York, two or three have been killed on
the transit system. But, unfortunately, their presence
discourages others and helps to create the sense that there is
no order. And because for many of them their behavior cannot be
predicted, it adds to the fear level.
So all of these things together add to a downward spiral
that is going to make people who do not have to depend on the
system less likely to use it. And if people only have to go to
work now one or 2 days a week instead of 5 days a week, I
suspect that many of them will not get out of their pajamas, as
the mayor asked them to, and they will find other ways to get
to their workplaces on the days that they do have to put on
clothing.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey.
Senator Tester from his office, from Montana.
Senator Tester. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member, for having this hearing. I think it is very, very
appropriate.
I have got a number of questions. I am going to start with
you, Ms. Pinkerton. You talked about electric buses on your
route, I think. What percentage of vehicles are electric in
your transit system?
Ms. Pinkerton. Thank you for the question, Senator. We just
launched our first two buses this year with another eight to
come. And then we intend to have a capital program where,
within 10 years, we would switch to primarily electric or with
a mix with our compressed natural gas fleet. I previously
mentioned our commitment to diesel-free by 2025. That will be
achieved by entirely compressed natural gas and a mixture of EV
coming into the fleet over the next 10 years.
Senator Tester. So you have two electric buses. And by the
way, congratulations on that. The two electric buses that you
have, have been on routes how long?
Ms. Pinkerton. They have been in service since last fall,
sir.
Senator Tester. Since last fall. So we know the advantage
that I think has been pointed out already, no emissions and
noise issues are minimized in a big, big way. Can you talk
about any other advantages you might have other than the fact
that you can potentially run these off renewable energy? Are
there any disadvantages?
Ms. Pinkerton. Thank you for the question. One impact I
would not consider it a disadvantage. I think it is an
opportunity: I mentioned the retraining and retooling of an
American workforce. I have worked in the automotive industry,
the DOT. And we all saw the Silver Tsunami coming, and we saw
the younger generation coming up. I see an opportunity for
workforce retraining.
As a matter of fact, we bring 17-year-olds from high school
into our facility, and we started doing this before electric
vehicles came online, working on the floor for half the day in
addition to taking their classes. They are paid a full wage
while they are with us, and they are offered a job at the end
of the 2 year training. But we are being incredibly aggressive
with the opportunity not only to help the future workforce
understand the electrification of transportation but the
electrification and security issues we have with the national
grid and our lack of a national energy policy.
Also, coding technology, advanced technology systems. I
mentioned a car and a bus generate a terabyte of data of day,
so understanding how those systems work is vital.
And one of the primary advantages we are going to see out
of this is our massive state of good repair improvements. I am
very fortunate. I do not have issues with state of good repair.
We have significant local funding at the Central Ohio Transit
Authority that ensures we are in a state of good repair at all
times. But in order to do that, you have to have the data and
the analytics to shift to a predictive maintenance model. We do
not wait for something to break down. We predict when it is
going to break down, and we fix it before it happens. And so
that shift to data and analytics I think is a huge opportunity
for us.
Senator Tester. Thank you.
Mr. Greenwood, this next question is for you because I have
had a request to ask you a question, but this is my question,
not the requestor's. For your work with MARTA, you are
coordinating with the Federal Transit Administration, the State
of Georgia, county governments, and of course, the city of
Atlanta. That is a lot of layers for you to deal with and I am
sure a lot of administrative headaches.
While not on the same scale, I hear from Montanans about
the amount of time that is required for reporting transit
projects, even routine operation. So, Mr. Greenwood, could you
speak a little bit about how your organization navigates these
requirements, and do you see areas where it might make sense to
take a different approach to some of the administrative
requirements?
Mr. Greenwood. Thank you for the question. We actually
enjoy a good partnership with our State and city
representatives. We are galvanized by the urgency of good,
connective public transit. And while there may be issues
administratively to be hammered out as a lot of the
legislation, a lot of the grant opportunities are new, we meet
quite regularly and have a deep internal commitment between the
groups that we are going to sit at the table, strategize, and
make sure that, you know, the winner in all of this is public
transit and the communities and individuals that depend on it.
Senator Tester. Thank you for that. I will just close with
a comment. I live 12 miles west from a town with a population
of 600. We do not have a lot of transit there.
So when I came to Washington, DC, and I had the opportunity
to ride the metro, I was pleasantly surprised. You pay to get
on the metro, and I can tell you that it costs me more money to
back my car out onto the street than it does to get a ride on
the metro. So to say that driving a car is cheaper than driving
transit or paying for transit, that is using some pretty funny
math.
With that, I yield, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Tester.
Senator Smith from Minnesota is recognized from her office.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks. It is
great to be with you.
Let me just ask this. The bipartisan infrastructure bill
has provisions that extend Build America/Buy America
requirements for our infrastructure programs--to infrastructure
programs that currently do not have them. And this means more
jobs with more benefits for American workers in Minnesota,
including in Minnesota's tech-med industry or for Minnesota's
bus manufacturers.
So, Mr. Regan, let me ask you about this. Can you speak to
the importance of the Buy America provisions in the
infrastructure bill, and what do you expect that effect to be
for American manufacturing?
Mr. Regan. Thank you, Senator. I think the Buy America
provisions are vitally important to the long-term success of
the investments we are making here. In particular, we have
emerging, new rolling stock opportunities, a new technology
that is going to be part of the system, including on EV side.
That is an emerging marketplace. And there is an opportunity
with the right policies to make sure that we can recapture some
of that manufacturing capability that we have lost over the
past and we have frankly given away.
So Buy America, combined with other investments into the
U.S. economy, will really go a long way to making sure that (a)
we have a functioning system, we have the workforce that can
provide it, and we have the supply chain here in the United
States to supply our systems with all of the buses, rolling
stock that they need.
Senator Smith. Right. I totally agree with that. You know,
Minnesota's Iron Range is a major supplier of American iron
ore, which is why we care so much about Buy America standards
that are focused on melted and poured in the United States. And
I would, of course, representing the Iron Range, add mining to
that. For the steel workers and others that are working on
Minnesota's Iron Range, this is absolutely essential.
So talk a little bit more about why these more detailed
standards and also addressing sort of the many waivers that
often had been granted in the past--why this is so important
and how it addresses our competitiveness as a country as well
as our ability to build out our manufacturing.
Mr. Regan. Yeah. You know, the Buy America and the way it
has been applied has always been slightly imperfect because you
are doing it based on a percentage of the rail car. So if it is
60 percent previously, go up to 75 percent. Everyone can assign
their own value based on how much the chassis truly made up of
this car or how much the aluminum shells were, things like
that.
So having more detail and more specificity with our Buy
America policies is really important and also having just more
data to understand where the gaps are within our own supply
chain so that we can meet those needs so that manufacturers can
find the opportunities to make something that can go into these
rail cars. So you know, the people that you represent up in
Minnesota can know where there is going to be an opportunity to
try to build something for this country and with the money that
we are investing into transportation.
Senator Smith. Right. And exactly those businesses that are
assessing where they want to put their investment dollars will
have a better understanding of where they are going to be able
to get a long-term return, and those workers are going to know
better where they can expect to really build a career. And all
of that, it seems to me, is contributing to our competitiveness
as a country and also to the long-term resilience of our supply
chains. And I think at the end of the day it also can
contribute to the affordability of the products that Americans
are buying. Would you agree?
Mr. Regan. I would completely agree with that, and I think
it would. The more we invest in manufacturing and actually
having a domestic supply chain, the cheaper it is going to be,
the more we can actually compete around the world, frankly.
And you know, if the supply chain crisis that we lived
through over the past year shows anything it is that in many
areas we just simply are not prepared to deal with, and to
provide, some of the goods that we need in this country. Rail
chassis was a huge example of that. We just did not make here,
and we did not have enough here. We might have the rail cars
ready to move. We might have the trucks to transport it. We did
not have the chassis. And that just shows that we are
unprepared for a moment like that.
Senator Smith. Right. Exactly.
Mr. Greenwood, let me quickly turn to you. I just have a
couple more seconds. People who rely on transit--and there are
millions of Americans who use transit to get to work, to
school, to get to the doctor's office, to get to childcare--
they understand kind of this truism that if you care about
opportunity, if you care about equity, you care about buses.
You cannot really have one without the other.
And so I am interested in your perspective on this as you
think about running an important organization like MARTA. What
do you do--how do you think about this need to really make sure
that that system is working, that it is well run, that it is on
time, that it works for that people that rely on it to make
their lives work?
Mr. Greenwood. It is integral in our daily lives as MARTA
employees. Unionized employees, frontline employees, management
right through and through, we have this commitment that our job
is to move people.
And I would go one step further and say public transit is
important even if you do not ride the bus and if you do not
ride the train. This pandemic showed us that, you know, the
employees that we call essential employees, they have been
essential all along. We have just decided to start calling them
that through the pandemic. But they went to work at the
hospitals, at the medical centers, you know, at the facilities
that created the PPE. And they continued working, and they got
there by and large via transit. So the beneficiaries of public
transit go beyond the people that actually step on the
vehicles.
Senator Smith. Well said. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Smith.
Senator Ossoff from Georgia is recognized.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And in addition to you, Mr. Greenwood, I want to welcome
the members of MARTA's board in attendance. And building on my
colleague Senator Smith's praise of the workers who sustain
these transit systems, I want to recognize Britt Dunhams's ATU
Local 732 and thank all of the transit workers in Georgia for
their efforts.
Mr. Greenwood, I want to begin by discussing expansion of
transit service to Clayton County. Clayton County joined MARTA
in 2014. And as you know, I am continuing to urge the expansion
of high-capacity service to Clayton County. Will the bipartisan
infrastructure law that we passed in Congress help provide
MARTA with the resources and the capacity to extend that
service into Clayton County.
Mr. Greenwood. It absolutely will. That is our commitment.
The bipartisan infrastructure law will deliver resources
necessary for high-capacity transit.
We acknowledge, you know, an existing challenge in making
sure that expanding rail anywhere in metro Atlanta is
difficult. We do have to, you know, have a lot of collaboration
with our partners and cooperation with the class 1 railroads,
who--you know, they have different priorities, and they are
perhaps less incentivized to move people as we are. However, we
will continue those conversations and those discussions.
And we are, you know, reassured by the fact that we can
successfully do high-capacity transit with our BRT systems. We
are pursuing that right now in Clayton County, and we are also
investigating bus rapid transit in Campbellton on Campbellton
Road in southwest Atlanta as well as Clifton Corridor in
northwest Atlanta. Northeast Atlanta.
Senator Ossoff. So, Mr. Greenwood, can you give an estimate
for when Clayton County residents may be able to take advantage
of that planned BRT system, which will be made possible in part
thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law?
Mr. Greenwood. Well, the good news is based on the support
of the BIL residents in Clayton County can start to expect
results as early as 2026. So our Southlake BRT will come online
in 2026. The operations and maintenance facility to support
that will come online in 2026. And what that means is it really
unlocks transit as a force multiplier. The sooner we get these
projects out of the ground and in running, you know, in
situational running, the sooner the beneficiaries can start to
improve their lives and contribute to the economic development
that we boast about.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood. And you mentioned
in your opening remarks the Five Points Station.
And MARTA is providing service across the metro Atlanta
region, Mr. Chairman--Lovejoy, Riverdale, College Park, East
Point, Decatur, all the way up to Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, and
Alpharetta. Five Points Station is the hub.
And I want to urge you, Mr. Greenwood, to submit that
application for the resources to help upgrade that facility,
particularly with a view toward increasing capacity and
passenger safety. And I commit to you that I will do everything
I can, working with Secretary Buttigieg, to see to it that we
can upgrade the Five Points Station, the hub of MARTA's heavy
rail system, and ensure that it is the safest and best hub
possible for riders in metro Atlanta.
Mr. Greenwood. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. I look forward to working with
you on that.
Finally, Mr. Greenwood, I want to ask you about planning.
And you know, the President signed my Local Transit Planning
Support Act into law as part of the bipartisan infrastructure
law, which expands support for transit planning in low-income
communities and in low-density communities. Can you please
comment on how the Local Transit Planning Support Act will
improve transportation around metro Atlanta but also based upon
your experience for coastal Georgia, for north Georgia, for
middle Georgia, for south Georgia, where there is not as robust
an existing infrastructure as there is around metro Atlanta?
Mr. Greenwood. Yeah, thank you for the question. I can say
that, you know, MARTA enjoys, you know, a one-cent sales tax
through the communities that it serves in Fulton, including the
city of Atlanta and the adjacent communities. Some of our
communities outside of MARTA's footprint--you know, one of the
common complaints that we hear is that transit is not expanding
fast enough and it is not going to the places that are
developing around the current MARTA footprint.
And so that legislation will enable some of the--you know,
some of the agencies that do not have as much funding, do not
have the formula available to do that kind of investigation. It
will allow them to catch up. It will allow them to do the work
necessary to actually create linkages with MARTA and better
serve the region through a considered and interconnected
network.
Senator Ossoff. And with the Chairman's indulgence, for
parts of Georgia outside of your immediate jurisdiction, for
folks along the coast, south Georgia, middle Georgia, north
Georgia, the Local Transit Planning Support Act will help low
density communities to plan their transportation systems. Based
upon your broad experience, 35 years working in transportation,
how can that law impact and improve transportation for
communities across the State?
Mr. Greenwood. I have always looked at transit as the
common thread that weaves through the fabric of any nation that
it serves. And there is no point in building strong transit in
one area and leaving the rest, the neighboring agencies,
desolate. So transit is--we call it the equalizer because it
gets you from point A to point B and from point B to point A.
So that is regardless of where you live. That currency, that
equity is available for you. And so that is the magic of
transit is that it is a common thread through all the
communities that it serves, and we will be better able to link
with the other providers of transit in that common goal.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
Senator Menendez from New Jersey is recognized.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this hearing. I know you have many topics before you,
and I appreciate it.
As my colleagues have heard me say many times over, we have
a program in the Northeast Corridor called the Gateway Program
to modernize our century-old infrastructure between New Jersey
and New York that is utilized by both New Jersey transit,
Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, some of the New York transit
entities, and it is absolutely vital to the future of my State,
the Northeast Corridor, and our national economy. And I say the
national economy because that region generates 20 percent of
GDP for the entire nation and this section is incredibly
important.
I am happy to report that we have made significant progress
on Gateway over the last year or so. The Portal North Bridge
project signed a full funding agreement with the Federal
Transit Administration in January of last year. That has
allowed over $800 million in Federal funding to begin to flow
to the project. And the Hudson River tunnels that had been
stalled for years under the previous administration are moving
again.
Last year, the Biden administration finalized the
environmental review project, and within the last few weeks the
project received an improved rating from FTA that will allow it
to move forwards under the Capital Investment Grants or the CIG
program. And that is why I raise this because I want to talk a
little bit about CIG as part of our effort.
But before that, I want to thank the Chairman and other
colleagues on the Committee for their work to pass a strong
transit title as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act that increased the authorization for the CIG program by 50
percent. Last week, we passed a final fiscal year '22 spending
bill that included an additional $400 million for CIG, and when
combined with direct appropriations, it essentially amounts to
a doubling of CIG from fiscal year '21 to '22.
So I would like to ask Ms. Pinkerton and Mr. Greenwood,
both of your transit systems have Small Starts projects in the
CIG pipeline. Can you speak about the importance of the CIG
program to your respective agencies and the communities that
they serve?
Ms. Pinkerton. Well, thank you, Senator, for the question.
Our Small Starts Capital Investment Grant applications do fall
under a regional growth initiative locally that we have really
put a lot of thought into over the last 5 to 10 years, so we
understand where the rapid growth is and will take place. The
addition of a million more people to our region could cause
housing to increase and become unaffordable. We are seeing that
realized today.
And we are also seeing that the amount of infrastructure
needed to meet these needs could cost billions. But if we build
in a smaller footprint, in a more transit-oriented manner, then
we have the ability to actually reduce the tax burden on our
local residents. That will require investment in transit in an
order of magnitude we have not done before in the central Ohio
region. So the CIG program is absolutely essential to us as we
transform our community from a small city into a metropolitan
area.
And I need to mention that, in particular, the policy
changes around the Small Starts portion has been vital for
communities of ours who have gone from a mid-sized city to a
large city status just in the last census.
Senator Menendez. Mr. Greenwood, do you want to add
anything to that?
Mr. Greenwood. Similarly, I would say that the improvement
through the CIG of really changing our ceiling from $300
million to $400 million has really unlocked the ability for
MARTA in particular to move a lot more projects through the
pipeline. So we have gotten ourselves into a position where
through a more agile administrative landscape, we were able to
execute on multiple projects at the same time, bringing to the
communities, you know, the sense of soon, certain, positive
results as opposed to a landscape that normally causes people
to hear about something and then wait and wait for results.
They are able to get a timeline that is more in keeping with
their expectations, and it allows us to more aggressively move
through the process.
Senator Menendez. And I assume you both believe that
Congress should fully fund the Federal share of these eligible
products; is that a fair statement?
Mr. Greenwood. We do.
Senator Menendez. One last question. I am a former mayor,
and I have seen firsthand the transformative impact that access
to well-planned transit can have on communities. I have long
worked to provide additional resources to strengthen the
linkage between affordable housing and access to transit. And I
am pleased that some progress was made on that front in the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, providing greater focus
on transportation planning activities, including what I call
livable communities or the effort of transit villages and
putting it all together in terms of infrastructure. I
appreciate and have worked with this on the Chairman in the
past.
Can you speak to the ways in which your agencies have
worked, or are working, to incorporate access to affordable
housing when developing and evaluating the impacts of a
potential project?
Mr. Greenwood. If I may begin, you know, at MARTA that has
been a staple of our development. We talk about lines and dots
and making sure that not only do we build the community through
effective corridor planning but making sure that the dots, the
stations, the areas around those stations are well supported.
We firmly believe that equitable transit-oriented development
is essential to the development of a community. When we speak
about economic development, the intention is for people that
live in the community to be able to share and contribute to
that economic development.
We also know that, you know, in families where rental
income or rental rates are difficult it is often the case that
people are moving, changing locations in order to find housing
that they can afford. And the domino effect of that, of course,
is that the children that are established in school and trying
to, you know, demonstrate their own academic prowess end up
having to change schools and relocate themselves and start over
again. So we are affecting more than just, you know, the
immediate members of the family that we see getting on the
trains. We are affecting the entire family.
So equitable transit-oriented development forces
communities that--not forces, but enables communities to work
together to plan deliberately to protect the interests of
everyone.
Senator Menendez. Thank you for your insights.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Menendez.
Senator Warnock from Georgia is recognized. I shared with
Mr. Greenwood and his staff from MARTA prior to the hearing the
good work you did in helping to build a strong transit title.
So you are recognized. Thank you.
Senator Warnock. Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman, and
it is wonderful to be a part of this hearing on public
transportation and the bipartisan infrastructure bill. I often
say that physical mobility and social mobility are inextricably
connected. People need to be able to get where they are going
to get where they are going. And so this is important work.
And I am particularly proud that Mr. Collie Greenwood is
here representing MARTA, which services the metro Atlanta area.
Georgia has more than 15 urban transit systems and 80 rural
systems serving nearly 80 percent of our 159 counties from
Augusta to Valdosta.
Georgia transit and MARTA's expansion plan has been top of
mind for me since my first day here in the Senate, especially
as we negotiated the bipartisan infrastructure package. I agree
with my colleagues who have talked about the importance of CIG,
and I was proud to introduce the Capital Investment Grant
Improvement Act and fought to ensure that its provisions were
included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
I want to talk specifically about MARTA's work in Clayton
County. Georgia creates jobs, provides commuters with more
affordable mobility options--again, mobility leads to social
mobility--bolstering the local economy. And that is why I was
thrilled to deliver a one-two punch of funding last week for
MARTA's new multipurpose operations and maintenance facility in
Clayton County. I fought all year to include funding for
critical Georgia projects in our annual funding package, and
last week we passed it into law, good news, including $5
million I secured for MARTA's new facility.
I also learned last week that MARTA will receive $15
million for that same facility through the Federal Buses and
Bus Facilities Competitive Grant program. And I was proud to
write in support of MARTA's application and glad that we were
able to deliver on both fronts.
Mr. Greenwood, could you tell me a little about the
importance of this facility to MARTA and to Clayton County?
Mr. Greenwood. Thank you, Senator Warnock. And we
collectively at MARTA have been celebrating the good news and
singing your praises and Senator Ossoff's praises just very
recently about all the work that you have done to support us in
this regard.
The Clayton operations and maintenance facility
specifically is very important to the neighborhood as well as
it is to our system. It is a bricks-and-mortar representation
to the people in the community that MARTA is not just passing
through. We are actually -we are living here.
And it is a representation to the people in the community
that, yes, there are going to be 733 permanent jobs, direct and
indirect, as a result of this facility being in the
neighborhood, and they are jobs in operations, administration,
technology, leadership and management.
It is an inspiration to the community. We will have a local
MPD, MARTA Police Department, precinct right there in the
neighborhood. It provides all at once economic development,
addresses climate change because of its green leanings, safety
and security in the neighborhood, equity, pride, and
inspiration in a neighborhood, and a clear example of capital
investment leading to operational efficiencies in that we
minimize nonproductive, what I call deadhead miles and
minutes--that is time that the vehicle is not revenue service--
because the home is now inside of the community.
So for all those reasons, the Clayton O&M facility is
firing on all cylinders.
Senator Warnock. And all of those are wonderful
developments and benefits to this work.
You touched on its impact on the issue of the climate and
sustainability. Can you say a little bit more about how this
facility impacts your effort to transition more of your bus
fleet to electric?
Mr. Greenwood. Sure. Thank you. I will say this. It is a
purpose-built facility, and that means that we are-- yes, we
are solving today's needs in terms of how many buses will we
move in there and how will they be distributed throughout the
system, but we are keenly aware of the fact that we will--it is
incumbent on us to support today's propulsion needs and
tomorrow's propulsion discoveries.
We are aware of it at this--you know, it is 2022, and the
technology in bearing zero emission propulsion systems is
changing rapidly. And so we are making sure that this facility
allows us to remain nimble, allows us to accommodate what we
know about electric buses today and accommodate tomorrow the
emerging developments in the future propulsion technologies.
So we will have space. We will have ports. We will have
roof-mount access for the batteries. We will have hoists and
smart hoists and charging. We will have safety and minimal
reversal moves built into the design of the system, of the
facility. So it is what we need today, but it is absolutely
forward-facing in a green landscape.
Senator Warnock. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Greenwood.
Focused on green opportunities in this work. Glad that I was
able to secure $20 million for this facility. Hopefully, we can
secure future investments, and I look forward to seeing this
project once it is completed.
Mr. Greenwood. Thank you, Senator Warnock.
Senator Warnock. Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Warnock.
Senator Van Hollen from Maryland is recognized.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank all of
you for your testimony and your work.
You know, the passage of the infrastructure modernization
bill is going to be a huge boost to transit in my State of
Maryland. It is going to allow us to modernize our existing
transit systems, build new light rail systems. It will extend
the Federal participation in our nation's metro system here,
the WMATA system in Washington, the Washington region. And it
will revive a chance for Baltimore to build a full metro
system, which is called the Red Line, where the Federal
delegation secured about a billion dollars in Federal support
but the State, a number of years ago, decided not to put the
matching fund in, the Governor at that time. So we think we
will get that back on the list of things to do.
I would like to focus briefly on an overlooked area of
transit but one where we made substantial progress as part of
the infrastructure modernization bill, and that is transit
worker safety and workforce development and training. And, Mr.
Regan, thank you and your team at the Transportation Trades
Department for your input on the bill, especially those
provisions.
I want to start with the safety issue because I introduced
a bill to support greater worker safety in response to all of
the assaults that we have witnessed on our transit workers,
which predated the pandemic but really came to a peak during
the pandemic. And there was no sort of definition for what
constituted one of these attacks. There was no recordkeeping.
And there was no system in place for preventing these avoidable
attacks.
I am pleased that we were able to include provisions from
that bill in the final product. Thank you for your support. Can
you just talk about the implementation of those safety
provisions and why they are important and how we can make quick
progress?
Mr. Regan. Of course. And first of all, thank you for your
leadership on this issue. It was vital to getting us across the
finish line. This has been shockingly hard to get accomplished
over the years. So for us to have this finally in law is a
really major win for working people.
To your point, under the current definition of assault,
somebody could have their nose broken while they are driving a
bus and that not count as a Federal assault. So we need to make
sure that the rules and reporting requirements are definitely
upgraded and accurately reflect the scale of the problem as we
see it.
The other thing that I think is one of the most important
aspects of what this bills does is it brings the workers into
the safety planning process, which is--it seems so obvious.
These are people who are seeing this, seeing what it is like on
the ground. They are the ones who are dealing with the
assaults, are the ones who know where the vulnerabilities are,
and they should be at the table when they are talking to their
agencies about planning for how to make a safer environment for
both passengers and for the employees. So that is going to be a
really big step for us toward hopefully solving this awful
problem.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, I look forward to working with
you on the implementation phase. As you know, passing a law is
one thing; implementing it is another. So we want to make sure
that those changes take place as rapidly as possible for the
safety of the workers.
Another often overlooked area has been workforce training
for transit operators and workers. I had also introduced
legislation on that. I was pleased that the FTA also moved
forward about the same time with a national transit workforce
center and that that received additional funds as part of the
infrastructure bill. Can you talk about implementation of that
provision of the legislation?
Mr. Regan. Yeah. Well, first of all, this is the first time
we are actually putting Federal funding into frontline transit
workforce training, which is a huge improvement, something that
is frankly long overdue. And the funds in the infrastructure
act will actually help us jumpstart that in a much more
important way and not at a better--not at a moment too soon
because if we do see--if my friends over here are going to be
expanding service and seeing new opportunities to grow transit
systems, we need to have the workers there that are ready to
operate all of this.
So we are looking forward to working together with agencies
and with our partners in the industry, that when we are going
in there to apply for funds, when people are saying, hey, FTA,
this is our--this is what we plan to do with this money. Here
is where we want to use X billions of dollars. Well, let us
partner with that to make sure that the workforce development--
and these are the jobs we are going to create. These are how we
are going to train people up. These are the new skills we are
going to develop for our employees. That is going to be a
really important part of making this a success across the
country.
Senator Van Hollen. No, I appreciate that because we often
focus on the hardware of our transit systems, right-- buses,
metro cars, rails, trains--which we have to do. But of course,
they require a trained workforce, and we want to make sure that
workforce is safe as they go about their jobs.
So thank you for your work on this. It did take longer than
it should have, but I am glad we were able to include those
provisions in the final bill. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Van Hollen.
Thank you to the five witnesses for joining us today, the
two from New York and Oregon and the three of you that are
here.
This hearing showed the great benefits to the public that
come from the infrastructure law's investment in public
transit. We will see great benefits in other infrastructure
sectors.
Thanks to the witnesses for your testimony.
For Senators who wish to submit questions for the hearing
record, these questions are due 1 week from today, on Tuesday,
March 22nd.
To the five witnesses, please submit responses to questions
for the record within 45 days from the day you receive them.
Thank you all for joining us.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:06 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Prepared statements and responses to written questions
supplied for the record follow:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN
Ohioans know how we let our infrastructure languish for far too
long. They talked to Congress for years, trying to get Washington to
listen.
Presidents of both parties promised infrastructure investment. It
took this president and this Congress to deliver.
Some of the most important work we've done this Congress in the
Banking and Housing Committee is writing the most significant
investment ever in public transit under the Bipartisan Infrastructure
Law.
But it's not just about the numbers--it's about what that
investment will do, and how this will matter in people's lives.
It's going to mean transit agencies can run more buses and trains,
more often, in more neighborhoods.
Last year, Darryl Haley with Cincinnati Metro testified at our
first hearing of the year on transit. He talked about one worker he
knows at a restaurant in suburban Cincinnati--she had to spend her
entire day's paycheck on an Uber to get to work, because her regular
bus didn't run on Sundays.
But she could not miss her shift without risking her job. The bus
didn't come when she needed it, and that prevented an entire day's hard
work from paying off. And it happens to her almost every single week.
With the infrastructure bill, we have the potential to change the
lives of workers like her. We can run buses on Sundays. We can run
trains more often. We can add routes. We can add stops.
That's going to make it faster and easier for people who already
use public transit to get to work. It's going to open up new job
opportunities, when people aren't limited by where the bus or the train
runs.
And it's going to going to make subways and buses and streetcars a
viable option for the first time for new riders.
Right now, so many families are feeling the pain of high gas prices
because of Russia's attack on Ukraine.
They have no choice but to pay those high prices, because they have
to get to work, they have to get to school, they have to get to the
grocery store.
But if there's a reliable bus or train, workers won't have to
choose between paying for gas or making rent.
This is going to make such a difference--especially in so many
communities that haven't had reliable transit. It's the Black and brown
communities who have been historically cut off from job centers. It's
rural areas where walking isn't an option.
For our nation's seniors, a van or bus from the local transit
service is a lifeline to the doctor or the grocery store or church.
And because of the work we did on this committee, not only are we
going to run buses more often, they're going to be cleaner, newer, and
safer buses.
More communities are going to be able to get new, state-of-the-art
zero-emission buses on the roads. That's going to fight climate change
and it's going to clean up the air in our communities.
The Administration is already accepting applications for the zero
emission bus grants we passed.
I've seen how Ohio agencies like LakeTran, SARTA and COTA are
leading the country in deploying these pollution-free buses. Over the
coming year, we're going to see them in communities all over the State
and the country.
And we made sure that workers will get the training they need to
work on these new buses.
On this committee and under this president, workers will always--
always--have a seat at the table.
I want to quickly thank the members of our Committee for their work
to get this done.
Republican Ranking Member Toomey and I don't see eye-to-eye on many
issues, but we were able to reach agreement to reauthorize Federal
Transit Administration programs.
We can both be proud that cities like Cleveland and Philadelphia
can replace rail cars that date back to the Carter Administration.
Our Housing and Transit Subcommittee Chair Tina Smith and the
Subcommittee's Ranking Member, Senator Rounds, did great work to
improve rural transit and tribal transit.
Senator Menendez and Senator Reed continue to be leaders in
fighting for a fair share of funds for transit.
Senator Tester, Senator Warner, and Senator Sinema played a key
role in ensuring the Committee's transit title moved forward in the
bipartisan negotiations, working with the Republican members of the
bipartisan group.
Senator Warner and Senator Van Hollen fought to reauthorize funds
for ``America's Subway,'' the Washington, DC, Metro system, and Senator
Van Hollen's legislation to improve agency safety plans gives workers a
stronger voice in safety matters.
Senators Warnock and Ossoff helped us fight for better bus rapid
transit and better planning, and Senator Cortez Masto contributed
provisions to link transportation planning with housing needs.
I also want to thank Senator Warren and other members of our caucus
who have kept advocating for zero-emission buses.
After the difficult times of the pandemic, the future for public
transit and for our infrastructure is finally brighter.
I will spend the coming months working with Ohio cities and
townships and counties and villages to make sure that every community
knows all the opportunities available to them to improve their transit
systems.
I know many of my colleagues will be doing the same. I look forward
to hearing from our witnesses today about all the potential for job
creation and economic growth we can unleash.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY
Today's hearing is about the public transit component of the
bipartisan infrastructure law. As I've previously said, we should not
pay for an infrastructure package by borrowing billions more dollars.
Yet, that is precisely what happened with this law. It authorized so
much new spending that $118 billion had to be transferred from the
Treasury's General Fund to the Highway Trust Fund, which is supposed to
pay for mass transit and highway construction with gas tax revenue.
Some of my Democrat colleagues would make this shortfall worse by
suspending the Federal gas tax, reasoning that the solution to high gas
prices isn't more supply, but rather more debt. I'd suggest if we want
to help commuters and families suffering from inflation, we can start
by reversing the administration's actions that keep us from using our
own fossil energy. But back to infrastructure.
Federal spending should be driven by a reasoned assessment of our
Nation's needs. However, the bipartisan infrastructure law seems to
have been driven more by Democratic political imperatives.
The bill funneled billions to projects that the private sector has
been more than willing to fund, such as ferries and EV charging
stations. Transit was given $108.1 billion over a 5-year period. To put
that number into perspective, it's almost twice what transit got in the
last surface transportation reauthorization.
And this staggering sum will be on top of the nearly $85 billion
given to transit, the vast majority of it categorized as ``emergency''
spending to offset COVID losses, from March 2020 to March 2021. In
fact, this nearly $85 billion in funding exceeded the combined annual
operating and capital costs of all transit agencies in the U.S.
At the time, Democrats tried to justify paying for more than 100%
of transit agency budgets by saying that transit systems would collapse
from declines in ridership and State and local tax revenues. Yet, State
and local tax collections set a new record in 2020. And Congress gave
more than $850 billion to States and local governments for COVID
relief.
Worse, billions of dollars will go to transit agencies that were
facing ridership challenges well before COVID. Since reaching a high of
10.7 billion trips in 2014, transit ridership has steadily fallen. It
fell by almost 8% in 2019.
And the last 2 years saw even steeper declines. Ridership fell at
some agencies by over 70 percent. Some estimates predict ridership will
never fully return to prepandemic levels.
Agency leaders in New York, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC, have
all said their riders won't return. So why give away more taxpayer
money to agencies serving far fewer riders?
A number of advocates suggest the ``solution'' to falling ridership
is fare-free transit. Advocates claim this will increase ridership and
on-time performance of transit; achieve ``social equity''; and reduce
operator assaults and ``fare evasion.'' I suppose one way to reduce
fare evasion-which is really theft of services-is to never charge a
price in the first place.
But as Milton Friedman helped publicize: there's no such thing as a
free lunch. In my view, just as car owners pay a Federal gas tax to
support highways, transit riders should have to pay their fair share,
too. As should local communities.
Transit systems serve a city or metropolitan area, not the entire
country. That's why Congress has traditionally helped to pay for
capital needs, but not operating expenses. If New York or Washington,
DC, cannot--or will not--pay for their transit systems, why should
Federal taxpayers?
There's one other issue we must discuss. And that's the rising
rates of crime in mass transit systems. Despite having far fewer
riders, New York, LA, Chicago, and Philly are all seeing spikes in
transit crime. There were 461 felony assaults on New York's
Metropolitan Transportation Authority last year. That's the highest
number since 1997.
MTA riders are confronting fearful conditions. We've seen the news
stories: hammer attacks, stabbings, and multiple people pushed onto
subway tracks, including in front of oncoming trains, with one woman
tragically killed. Even New York City's mayor-a former cop-says he
doesn't feel safe on the subway.
Today, we will hear from two witnesses on the ongoing, systemic
challenges facing transit agencies that were ignored by the bipartisan
infrastructure law. Dr. Dorothy Schulz, a retired transit police
captain, will testify that transit systems must address security issues
that are putting rider safety at risk. And Randal O'Toole of the
Thoreau Institute will testify about the long-term decline in ridership
that began before COVID.
We've seen time and again that throwing extraordinary sums of
taxpayer dollars without serious reforms encourages transit systems to
maintain the status quo. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses
and discussing the question: does mass transit continue to make sense
in every U.S. city at its current scale?
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOANNA M. PINKERTON
President and CEO, Central Ohio Transit Authority
March 15, 2022
Thank you, Chairman Brown, for the opportunity to testify this
afternoon on the enormous opportunities I see for central Ohio under
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
This legislation represents a long-overdue commitment to repairing
our transportation networks and repurposing them for a future economy,
and in ways some may not realize. It addresses many of the ill effects
of decisions of years past--congestion, pollution, and intentionally
divided communities. Our transportation networks have not kept pace
with rapidly-evolving changes in how we live, work and do business;
and, they certainly do not account for the rapid and exciting
advancements in technology which directly impacts the movement of goods
and people. With this new infrastructure funding, we can begin to shift
our old ways of thinking to fix that.
Ohio's two Senators played a central role in drafting this
transformative legislation through listening and raising their
awareness of the necessary investment needed to support our nation's
economy. I would like to share some examples of how the Central Ohio
Transit Authority can put these funds to work for central Ohio.
CIG Funding for LinkUS
Central Ohio is a region of 2.2 million people, with an expectation
to grow to 3 million in the next two decades. We know that through
smart growth and planning principles, transit can build communities
which lead to a higher quality of life built around affordable housing
and equitable access to amenities and employment opportunities. Our
transformational LinkUS initiative is exactly that. Entities across our
region are collaborating to address our growth more sustainably--
through high-capacity, high frequency transit corridors that will
support more dense transit-oriented development.
Two of our planned corridors are already in the Capital Investment
Grant (CIG) funding pipeline at the Federal Transit Administration, and
a third corridor will be submitted later this year. We worked
diligently to align these projects with the outcomes expected in the
CIG program and expect LinkUs will benefit greatly from the
infrastructure bill's improvements to the Small Starts portion of that
program.
Sustainability
At COTA, we understand and take seriously our role in protecting
lives through improving air quality in our region. Public
transportation is the original ``green'' transport industry, making
more efficient use of infrastructure through shared resources, shared
trips, less emissions, and a smaller carbon footprint than what is
required to subsidize single occupant trips. Our industry knows, that
to have a lasting impact, we must commit to converting transit vehicles
to clean fuel vehicles. At COTA, we are on track to meet our commitment
to be diesel-free by 2025. And, we are preparing our path forward to a
net carbon neutral future. Last year, with the help of a Federal low/no
grant, we proudly deployed our first electric transit vehicles, and we
went a step forward with our local energy providers to ensure they are
powered by entirely renewable energy. The FTA just announced more than
$1B in funding to assist us and others in our fleet transition, and we
will work diligently to secure Federal dollars to accelerate our move
to a clean-fueled fleet.
Workforce
Our front line operators--in our fixed route service, our on-demand
microtransit COTA//Plus service, and Paratransit service--are essential
to our mission. And the transit industry is facing workforce challenges
like many sectors of the American economy. At COTA, we did not lay off
a single transit operator during the pandemic, yet the current labor
shortage has forced us to make service reductions. We are short almost
20 percent of the operators necessary to operate our fixed route
service--putting a burden on our community and customers who experience
service delays, and stretching our heroic frontline staff thin through
overtime and aggressive work schedules. Through innovative recruiting
and training, we are starting to see progress in skilling up a new
generation and workforce retraining funds will be key to this momentum.
Technology and Innovation
This law will not only improve the condition of our roadways, it
can transform how we use them. It has the potential to dramatically
improve safety and increase capacity through efficiencies that do not
require expansions.
In central Ohio, our current highway capacity can meet even future
demand--IF we invest in emerging technology and repurpose our existing
assets. Connected and shared vehicles hold the potential to make moving
both safer and more efficient. This will help bring us closer to the
goal we all share: an end to crash-related injuries and fatalities.
Our vehicle systems are connected and they each generate more than
a terabyte of data each day. This creates a huge opportunity to
leverage that data to solve many of the issues our inefficient
transportation systems cannot handle at the moment. The new Federal
investment takes bold steps to support transit agencies and other local
officials in upgrading transportation technology systems.
Thanks in part to an Innovative Mobility Integration (IMI) grant
from the Federal Transit Administration, COTA has partnered with new
artificial intelligence start-up companies to use traditional traffic
management data built on old ways of operating, and coupling it with
predictive analytics to increase safety and reduce travel times across
our region.
COTA brings a unique approach to serving our region. Our mission is
to connect people to prosperity through innovation, dedication and
teamwork--and, the more innovative, the better. The transportation
systems built by previous generations made huge strides to bring us
where we are, but it is time to re-invest and re-imagine how those
systems can be utilized for future generations more equitably. The once
``future'' trends are already here--generations of workers and those
soon to join the workforce want quality of life and outcomes from their
services. They believe mobility should be ubiquitous and accessible in
the palm of their hand--part of an American lifestyle which includes
the pursuit of happiness through enriching and meaningful actions.
Understanding this, we have developed partnerships with The Ohio
State University Center for Automotive Research (OSU CAR), the
Transportation Research Center (TRC), US 33 Smart Mobility Corridor,
emerging and preemergent tech companies to see how we can better move
ALL lives forward by trying new things. The newly added flexibility in
this law allows--for the first time--for agencies on the cutting edge
to implement recent research and successful demonstration of technology
into standard every day practice. This is one of the most vital parts
of the bill--just as we fund asphalt, concrete, steel, and plastic--we
have to fund the digital to connect them all.
When the public, private and academic sectors work together, we can
create seamless networks to make the movement of people and goods
easier and more cost-effective. This is exactly the type of environment
needed to attract global businesses and investments.
Conclusion
The bipartisan infrastructure bill is exactly the type of Federal
support needed for agencies pushing the envelope like ours. I
appreciate the opportunity to share with you how we see this historic
legislation impacting our growing region.
Thank you.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF COLLIE GREENWOOD
Interim General Manager and CEO, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit
Authority
March 15, 2022
Good morning, Chairman Brown and Ranking Member Toomey, and
distinguished Members of the Committee. I am Collie Greenwood, Interim
General Manager and CEO of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit
Authority in Atlanta, Georgia, known as MARTA. I am honored to have the
opportunity to appear alongside my transit agency colleagues to share
our experience at MARTA, and future expansion efforts made possible in
part by the Congress's passage of the Bi-partisan Infrastructure Law.
Serving MARTA in this role has been the culmination of 35 years of
experience in the transit industry. I worked my way through college as
a transit bus operator. At first, it was just a job that paid the
bills, but at some point, the mission of getting people where they
needed to go became a part of me. I rose to Chief Service Offer at
Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), and I guided that agency though
several transformational initiatives. In 2019, I was personally
recruited by MARTA's former CEO Jeff Parker because of the alignment of
our vision for public transportation. Jeff spoke about it as ``lines
and dots''--the lines being the transit and the dots as the communities
and places we serve.
MARTA is the largest public transit agency in the southeast and one
of the largest in the country, providing bus, rail, paratransit, and
streetcar services, and has a robust transit-oriented development
program that incorporates affordable housing and equitable access,
driving economic growth and development around our rail stations. We
have eagerly embarked on three expansion projects that I'll briefly
describe today, as we hope they will be direct beneficiaries of funding
and policy changes made possible by the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Law.
These expansion projects will benefit from a key change to the Small
Starts Program--which as you know increases project eligibility from
$300 million to $400 million. I'd like to personally thank Senators
Warnock and Ossoff for their leadership on securing that change that is
already having an impact for MARTA.
One of the first initiatives I worked on when I arrived at MARTA
was a series of improvements to bus amenities and a focus on bus
service enhancement and expansion. As a former bus operator, I
understand the importance of reliable bus service and that while rail
may get most of the attention--it is the bus that is the backbone of
public transit and bus service, particularly bus rapid transit, has the
potential to be transformative for a community.
With that in mind, MARTA is pleased to share that the Clayton
Southlake Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project has advanced to the project
development phase of the Small Starts Program. The estimated $338-
million-project will provide high-capacity transit service connecting
College Park rail station in the southern part of metro Atlanta that is
close to the airport--to several key destinations in Clayton County,
including major commercial corridors, the hospital and the City of
Riverdale Town Center. As the first BRT in Clayton County, the project
will feature 13 new BRT-branded stations with offboard fare collection,
ten BRT-branded electric buses and associated electric vehicle charging
infrastructure, and the installation of transit signal priority
equipment at key intersections. Additionally, the FTA recently awarded
MARTA a $1 million Transit-Oriented Development Corridor Planning Grant
to analyze and develop a potential project list of community
developments at and around those proposed BRT stations in order to
amplify the positive benefits of transit investments in the area.
Another one of MARTA's highest ridership bus routes is along
Campbellton Road in Southwest Atlanta. MARTA, in partnership with the
City of Atlanta, is investing in high-capacity transit to improve
connectivity, accessibility, and mobility along this important
corridor. The transit and transit-oriented development investments
planned for this vibrant part of the city will support the overall
economic and community development sought by the established
neighborhoods along the route. MARTA is hopeful these investments will
spur the redevelopment of Greenbriar Mall and former U.S. Army
facility, Fort McPherson, which in years past were significant economic
drivers for this community.
One of the exciting parts of bus rapid transit is the planned use
of electric buses to travel through dense urban corridors--leaving no
emissions or noise in their wake. In 2019, MARTA was awarded a $2.6
million FTA Low/No Emission Bus Grant to support the purchase of our
first six electric buses and charging infrastructure. These buses
replace six 2005 diesel buses and will be put into service on routes
serving Atlanta and DeKalb County on May first.
For comparison--the six diesel buses combined operate for almost
333,000 miles and consume 94,900 gallons of diesel fuel each year.
These new zero-emission buses will reduce MARTA's fleet emissions by
approximately 935 short tons of greenhouse gases, while also reducing
harmful fine particle matter that is linked to a variety of health
issues. The increase in funding for the Low/No Emission Bus Grant
program will help MARTA accelerate the transition of our fleet.
We are also working with the City of Atlanta on the transformation
of our largest and busiest train station--Five Points--which sits in
the heart of the city. MARTA will be seeking a RAISE grant and new
discretionary grants to support the $150 million redevelopment of the
station that is the intersection of MARTA's four rail lines and
transfer hub for dozens of inter-city bus routes that serve major
Government and educational facilities, job centers, and Atlanta's
vibrant arts and cultural scene.
MARTA is investing in the bus facilities at Five Points station to
improve the customer experience by minimizing transfer time, covering
waiting areas, providing better seating, signage and arrival and
departure information screens. MARTA and the City of Atlanta will
remove the canopy above the station to allow for the development of two
mixed income affordable housing towers. There is a high demand for
affordable housing units in Atlanta and particularly at those locations
connected to transit, providing an ideal opportunity for MARTA and the
City.
Federal investment in this vital hub of the MARTA transit system
has wide-reaching economic development benefits including the
Summerhill BRT project for which MARTA received a U.S. Department of
Transportation TIGER Grant in 2018. This BRT connects the Atlanta
BeltLine, Peoplestown, Summerhill, Capitol Gateway and South Downtown
and is nearing design completion with buses on the street in 2025. The
Five Points transformation will enhance the area adjacent to the State
of Georgia's Two Peachtree Building and Georgia State University's
downtown campus while also helping to boost the convention and
hospitality industries, left reeling from the pandemic. While the goal
is to have the project complete in time for Atlanta to host the World
Cup in 2026, the effects of the transformation will stretch well beyond
that, accelerating billions in private development planned in South
Downtown Atlanta. Five Points station is a landmark for Atlantans and
its opening over 40 years ago placed Atlanta in the company of other
world-class cities with vital transit systems. This redesign seeks to
recapture that glory and reimagine the ways in which a transit hub can
enhance a city center.
In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to present to
the Committee today. I'm very proud of the progress that we've made in
the Atlanta region, including in very challenging circumstances while
we continued to provide service during the ongoing pandemic. I'm
grateful for the leadership of the Georgia congressional delegation and
their role in the passage of the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Law.
Senators Ossoff and Warnock have provided steadfast support of MARTA
and the communities we serve. Our leadership team here at MARTA is
confident that the passage of this law will contribute to sustained
growth of MARTA, as we expand in cost-effective and practicable ways
with the support of the Federal Transit Administration. Thank you for
your attention.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF GREG REGAN
President, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO
March 15, 2022
On behalf of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD),
and our 36 affiliated unions, I want to first thank Chairman Brown and
Ranking Member Toomey for inviting me to testify before the Senate
Banking Committee this morning about advancing public transportation
under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
TTD and our 36 affiliated unions have long called for the historic
investments that were finally delivered in the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law (BIL). We especially want to applaud the leadership
of President Biden and the members of the Senate who put partisanship
aside and showed Americans that we can still work together.
These investments can rebuild America's shrinking middle class with
good-paying union jobs in public transportation, construction, rail,
aviation, maritime, manufacturing, and beyond. These investments are a
promise not just to the workers we represent but also to the American
people that they can feel proud of our national infrastructure--the
transit systems that provide accessible and reliable service, the
highways that are free from potholes, the bridges that are no longer
corroding before their very eyes. These investments will also bring
relief to the pocketbooks of the American people as our overstressed,
inefficient transportation supply chain finally meets the growing
demand of consumers.
In addition to these direct and long-overdue investments in
America's infrastructure, the BIL also included key transportation
labor policies that have been long sought by TTD and our affiliated
unions. Thanks to members of this committee, we were able to ensure
that major new investments in zero emission transit were paired with
workforce training policies to ensure both the incumbent and future
workforce have the necessary skills to maintain complex electrical
equipment. The BIL also took concrete steps to stem the scourge of
unacceptable violence faced by transit workers every single day in this
country by ensuring workers have a real voice in their own workplace
safety.
On behalf of all transportation workers in this country, I thank
you for advancing investments and policies that will make a real,
tangible, and immediate difference in their lives.
COVID-19's Impact on Public Transportation Ridership
We understand that there is still real uncertainty about the future
of public transportation ridership in this country. Flexible telework
policies remain in place for many businesses, and many have vowed to
make flexible or full-time work from home policies permanent. Only time
will fully reveal the long-term impact of this for commuters,
commercial real estate, and housing.
But one thing hasn't changed: the people who most depend upon
public transportation. For them, it remains a critical lifeline to
jobs, healthcare, groceries, and many other day-to-day needs just as
much as it did before the pandemic came to America's shores.
Throughout the pandemic, bus and rail transit operators, station
agents, car cleaners, mechanics, and other frontline workers have
bravely put their own health and safety on the line to ensure this
critical lifeline still serves the public.
Beyond direct investments in good jobs and affordable
transportation options for millions of Americans--a benefit that will
only become more important in the weeks ahead as record gas prices,
generated to drive record profits for the oil companies gouging
Americans at the pump, place financial strain on already struggling
families--we should not overlook two other important benefits of public
transportation.
First, as the pandemic has laid bare, our supply chain is easily
disrupted by even small inefficiencies across our ports, roads, air,
and rail networks. A choke point anywhere along that system means goods
don't get delivered to your constituents on time, driving up prices and
creating avoidable uncertainty for American consumers. It would be a
serious mistake to take millions of Americans out of mass
transportation and put them into single occupancy vehicles on our
already overstressed roads and highways. Commuters and freight carriers
already spend hundreds of hours each year stuck in traffic, and the
last thing either needs is more out of pocket costs at the pump or the
market because we took a short-sighted view on supporting investments
in mass transportation.
Second, like all investments in our transportation infrastructure
and services, we know that Federal investments have a direct multiplier
impact on the economy. Beyond the direct labor income created within
the industry, the Federal, State, and local investments in mass transit
ensure that businesses have access to labor and ensure that customers
come through their doors. In other words, this is not a public expense.
It is a true, demonstrable public investment.
I say all of this to make one point. While we still can't fully
know the near- or long-term impacts of the pandemic on ridership and
service, it would be a grave mistake to undermine the workers in this
industry, the essential service they provide to commuters in urban and
rural communities alike, and the pocketbooks of every single American
by turning our back on the benefits delivered by public transit.
There's only solution to drive the prepandemic growth we saw in this
industry: more service, better service, and the kind of real long-term
vision delivered by President Biden, members of this committee, and the
BIL.
Transit Worker Safety
Two years ago, TTD's past president, Larry Willis, testified about
the horrific safety conditions faced by frontline public transit
employees on the job every single day--a problem that was only
exacerbated by COVID-19. Thanks to the hard work of this ommittee, TTD
and our affiliates, and the unwavering support of President Biden, we
will finally turn the tide and ensure safety for our workers.
By way of background, in 2015, transportation labor unions
successfully fought for the inclusion of assault prevention language in
the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. This language
required the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to publish a Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that established safety standards,
practices, or protocols for protecting transit operators from the risk
of assault. Under President Donald Trump's leadership in 2019, more
than four years after the passage of the law, the FTA issued a
toothless suggestion that transit agencies merely examine the problem
if they felt so inclined. Specifically, the notice required local
transit agencies to study the problem but stopped short of requiring
any meaningful action. Our unions condemned this failure of leadership
at the time and Congress joined us in calling out the FTA for ignoring
its obligations to the transit workforce.
In the absence of clear Federal leadership under the watch of
President Trump, transportation labor once again fought for a
legislative remedy that would put a stop to worker assaults and secured
specific worker safety requirements in the recently-passed BIL. The
safety requirements passed in that law were based on the Transit Worker
and Pedestrian Protection Act, which was led by Senator Chris Van
Hollen, endorsed by President-elect Biden, and enjoyed strong,
bipartisan support in Congress.
Thanks to the actions taken by this committee, the FTA is now
statutorily required to collect accurate data on transit workforce
assaults, to reform its Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan
(PTASP) process to include worker voices and incorporate measures to
reduce the risk of assault in every transit system, and to update its
national safety plan to address the risk of assault and public health
concerns.
But that does not mean we are in the clear. It has now been almost
4 months since the passage of the BIL and transit workers--who, like
any of us, simply want to go to work each day and not worry about
whether they may be attacked or killed on the job--have continued to
face the threat of violence in the workplace. Consider some of the
following examples:
On December 4, a CTA bus driver was inspecting his bus
after hearing a loud noise when he was pushed and repeatedly
punched by an unknown male and female. The operator was
hospitalized. Three days earlier, a CTA train operator was
hospitalized after two teenagers beat him and then ran away.
[Chicago Tribune, 12/12/21]
On December 8, a Detroit Department of Transportation
driver was stabbed by a passenger who was told to get off the
bus. [The Detroit News, 12/13/21]
On January 3, a Muni bus driver in San Francisco was
dragged out of the bus by a passenger and was left bleeding
from his nose and mouth from the assault. [Mission Local, 01/
28/22]
On February 7, a TriMet bus driver in Portland was maced by
a passenger while driving the bus. This was the third time he's
been attacked on the job. [KOIN Channel 6, 02/07/22]
On February 10, an MTA bus driver was attacked when an
assailant quickly exited the bus, picked up a tree branch from
the ground, and beat her with it before fleeing the scene. [NY
Post, 02/10/22]
It is deeply painful to watch transit workers continue to face the
threat of assaults and other unsafe conditions that place them in
harm's way in their workplace while we wait for these new safety
requirements to be implemented. However, I have been briefed by
Administrator Fernandez and her team at the FTA, and am confident that
they are working as quickly as possible to ensure no transit worker has
to ever again wake up wondering if today is the day they may wind up in
the hospital because their employers didn't protect them.
New Technologies and Meeting the Needs of the Workforce
Transportation labor has long held that new technologies and good
jobs are not mutually exclusive. We were excited to see this is a value
also held by Secretary Buttigieg, as demonstrated by the publication of
the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Innovation Principles.
Specifically, the DOT makes clear that, ``The Department will empower
workers and expand access to skills, training, and the choice of a
union. They will have a seat at the table in shaping innovation.''
The BIL clearly illustrates--through the Low or No Emission Vehicle
Program--that innovative new technologies and the creation and
maintenance of good union jobs can go hand in hand when good policy
ties them together. As detailed in our policy statement on the topic,
the adoption of zero emission buses posed a serious threat to good
union jobs in this sector. In part, this is due to years of
underinvestment in workforce training. Combined with unfocused and
sometimes non-existent policies on workforce support and training, this
transition places tremendous strain on the incumbent workforce who may
soon be asked to maintain complex electric infrastructure and vehicles.
Moreover, electric engines require fewer mechanics to maintain than
their diesel and natural gas counterparts, which currently make up more
than 99 percent of the domestic U.S. bus fleet. Policies that encourage
or require a rapid transition to an all-electric fleet without an
accompanying increase in transit service paired with strong labor
protections would risk putting tens of thousands of workers on the
unemployment rolls.
Rather than sideline these concerns, Senator Sherrod Brown fought
to ensure that massive new investments in the Low or No Emission
Vehicle program were tied to truly historic investments in the
incumbent and future workforce. Specifically, the BIL requires transit
agencies to examine the impact of the transition to zero-emission
vehicles as a part of their fleet transition plan and requires 5
percent of grants for zero-emission vehicles to address the impact of
the transition to zero-emission vehicles on the applicant's current
workforce unless the applicant can certify that a smaller percentage is
needed to carry out their plan. Critically, transit agencies are
encouraged to train the next generation of workers through
apprenticeship and other labor-management training programs. These
training models have a proven record of positive outcomes for worker
training and retention, and their further adoption in this industry is
a welcome step forward from transportation labor.
The first Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the revised Low
or No Emission Vehicle Program was issued last week, on March 8, 2022.
Thanks to Senator Brown's clear vision for workers and FTA
Administrator Fernandez' commitment to workforce training, the NOFO
included strong pro-worker language as a condition of receiving grants
to ensure that the training needs of the public transit maintenance
workforce will keep pace with these new technologies. We again thank
both of them on this important step forward for workers.
TTD has already held conversations with our partners at the
American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and the International
Transportation Learning Center (ITLC) to ensure that labor and
management are working closely on the development of training
materials, best practices, and other tools to help drive the adoption
of zero emission buses forward in a way that efficiently embraces
technology and ensures good union jobs.
We encourage lawmakers to view the revised Low or No Emission
Vehicle Program as a path forward for other technologies. Whether it's
electric vehicles or automation, our workers are ready and willing to
adapt, gain new skills, and integrate these technologies into their
workplaces when they are given the tools they need and the protections
they deserve to take on that work.
On behalf of transportation workers across the country, I again
want to thank the members of this committee for their commitment to the
shared goals of public transportation, President Biden and Secretary
Buttigieg for their clearly detailed vision for working people, and
Chairman Brown and Ranking Member Toomey for inviting me to speak
before you today.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DOROTHY MOSES SCHULZ
Adjunct Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
March 15, 2022
Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and Members of the Committee
on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, thank you for the opportunity
to testify. My testimony will focus on transit crime, the
decriminalization of fare evasion, broken windows theory, and the
public safety effects of fare-free transit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although I have list-I and a number of other affiliations, the
views expressed are my own and do not represent of the organizations I
have named. The Manhattan Institute does not take institutional
positions on legislation, rules, or regulations.
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My name is Dorothy Moses Schulz. I am a retired Metro-North
Railroad police captain; one of my assignments was commanding officer
at New York City's landmark Grand Central Terminal. I am also a
professor emerita of law and police science at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice (CUNY). I have been a security consultant for U.S.
transit agencies and have conducted safety and security audits on
behalf of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). I am currently an
adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Transit security is complicated. While transit agencies receive
Federal dollars, their budgets and priorities are set by the cities,
counties, or regional boards, or a combination of these, that direct
their activities.
Because of these bi- or trifurcated arrangements, policies on
security depend on direction from the boards, which are generally
comprised of political and civic leaders, rather than transit or law
enforcement professionals. That includes decisions about replacing
transit police with social service workers, how or whether to eject
unhoused individuals and drug users and sellers from their facilities,
and how or even whether to enforce against fare evasion.
Just as there is no one way to fund transit, there is no one way to
police it. Most large systems, including New York's commuter rail
lines, New Jersey Transit (NJT), Boston's MBTA, Philadelphia's SEPTA,
San Francisco's BART, Washington, DC's, WMATA, Dallas's DART, Houston's
METRO, and Atlanta's MARTA, have their own police forces.
But others, including York City's subway lines, San Francisco MUNI,
and Los Angeles Metro, rely for security on a combination of in-house
officers, private security, and local police or sheriffs' departments.
This is especially true for the light rail systems that have been
developed in the last few decades.
Transit policing has been affected by ``defund the police''
demands. Nearly 1,000 NYPD officers assigned to help remove homeless
riders were taken from transit and the NYPD's 85-member homeless-
outreach unit was disbanded.\1\ Luckily, New York City's new Mayor Eric
Adams, a retired police captain whose career began in the NYPD's
transit bureau, has announced a Subway Safety Plan\2\ that reverses
many of these changes.
Other cities, including Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle,
and Portland, Ore.,\3\ also cut back on policing transit, often in
favor of homeless outreach and mental health workers, and by civilian
ambassadors who, rather than issue fare evasion summons, explain to
fare-beaters how to pay their fares.
Many politicians cheered the changes. In New York and elsewhere,
progressive prosecutors have declined to prosecute trespassers, fare
evaders, and those arrested or issued summonses for public order
offenses, including drinking, urinating, or injecting drugs in public
space. Recently transit systems have reported riders smoking fentanyl
in restrooms and on buses and trains, raising security and health
concerns for other riders and particularly for employees.\4\
It is not coincidental that these cities face surging numbers of
homeless individuals and drug users and sellers who congregate in
stations and on trains and buses. Problems have been exacerbated by
COVID-19-related shutdowns, as some systems report ridership losses of
70 percent or more and a sluggish return of commuters. Among them were
New York's bus, subway and commuter rail lines; Boston's MBTA;
Chicago's CTA and Metra commuter line; Washington, DC, WMATA; and in
California, the San Diego Trolley, Los Angeles Metro, and San Francisco
Muni.\5\
As a result, stations have become de facto homeless shelters and
drug injection sites.
A study of homelessness in transit agencies found that almost 90
percent of the 115 of the primarily U.S., but also Canadian, agencies
responding reported complaints about homeless riders from other riders,
especially concerning hygiene and aggressive behavior. The majority
believe these riders have a negative effect on ridership, that has
increased during the pandemic.\6\ It is unclear, though, whether there
is an actual increase in homeless riders or whether their presence has
become more noticeable in the absence of other riders.
Neither destinationless riders nor people using transit facilities
for nontravel purposes are new, but passively allowing them to remain
is. Throughout their history, railroads hired officers to prevent
harassment of and thefts from patrons, to deter human traffickers
hunting for vulnerable strangers, and to protect employees and company
property.\7\
These capable guardians today are part of the theory of ``broken
windows,''\8\ which stresses the importance of curtailing little
offenses before they become big offenses, whether on the street, in a
mall, an ATM vestibule, or a transit facility. Broken windows policing
has been incorrectly described as the opposite of community policing;
one as tough, the other as soft. This is a false dichotomy. Assuring a
community' viability isn't tough or soft; it is maintaining order to
keep people safe and secure. Today, the decline in order maintenance
threatens patrons and employees.\9\
Yet a recent Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) report on
analysis, causes, and responses to ridership declines that includes the
chapter ``Possible Causes of Ridership Decline Identified in the
Literature'' contains the word ``security'' only in a chart. Nowhere
are crime, fear, homelessness, or drug use/sales mentioned as affecting
patrons' willingness to return to transit.\10\
Another TCRP study on fare enforcement provides a different
picture.\11\ It documents agencies' use of criminal, civil, or
administrative penalties to address nonpayment while complying with the
concerns of the many departments in a transit agency that have a say in
fare policies. I served on the topic panel, and I recommend it to you
to learn what agencies in your State are doing.
Rather than duplicate the report, I have chosen to highlight two
cities as representative of many transit systems. If you talk to
agencies in your States, you are likely to hear variations of these
examples.
Denver
Prior to COVID-19, Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD)
had successfully transformed Union Station from a deserted landmark
into a hub of tourist and commuter activity. But beginning in 2020, the
RTD diverted funds from security to hire mental health workers, and due
to COVID-restrictions, tourists and commuters disappeared. Today the
station is reeling from what Denver's Mayor Michael Hancock
euphemistically called ``unwelcome activities.'' Denver police have
made many more arrests than in past years, including more than 500 in
less than three months this year, including almost 50 in a single
day.\12\
Denver's police chief described the arrestees as homeless, addicted
to substances, and facing mental health challenges. A change in
penalties for drug possession, he said, contributed to
``defelonization, decriminalization [that] makes it very difficult to
hold people accountable.''
RTD, which has received about $300 million in American Rescue Plan
Act (ARPA) funds, decided even before the arrest blitz to close station
restrooms and is now consider requiring tickets for access to the
station to minimize illegal activity.\13\
But it is facing push-back. The director of the Harm Reduction
Action Center criticized the police and the RTD, although conceding
that Union Station had become a popular injection site primarily after
the library, previously the largest injection site, locked its
bathrooms to curtail drug activity.\14\ The Center, according to its
website, promotes public health by ensuring those who inject drugs are
educated and equipped with tools to reduce the spread of communicable
disease and to eliminate the proliferation of fatal overdoses. It
provides its program participants access to syringe between 9 a.m. and
noon.\15\
While there is increasing advocacy around the country for safe
injection sites, I believe that most people would agree this is not an
appropriate role for either a library or a public transit facility.
Seattle
Sound Transit, which operates in Seattle and Tacoma, is, like
Denver and many light rail systems, barrier free. This means there are
no turnstiles limiting entry or exiting. Patrons may be asked while on
board to show tickets or farecards indicating they have paid for their
ride.
Sound Transit in Seattle suffers from the city's crime wave and
from budget cuts to the Police Department that have resulted in about
300 vacancies in the 1,000-member department. Transit bus and rail
riders have asked for additional police since at least 2019. Recently
there have been persistent complaints of drug use on buses and trains,
including assaults on drivers by passengers high on drugs.\16\
Seattle police this month arrested a suspect for pushing a 62-year-
old woman down a flight of stairs at the Chinatown-International
District station. The alleged offender is also suspected of stabbing
another person at a downtown bus stop.\17\
Sound Transit is facing insolvency despite receiving about $166
million in ARPA funds. Yet its CEO Peter Rogoff, who was FTA
administrator, Undersecretary of Transportation under President Obama,
and before that, Senate Appropriations Committee staff, including
Democratic Staff Director of the Transportation Subcommittee, when it
was led by Sens. Murray and Lautenberg, reported in January, just
before retiring, that Sound Transit's losses have created a
``financially unsustainable'' trajectory, based in part on COVID-19
rider losses but also on an increase in non-paying passengers. ``When
you've got a situation with a 98 percent chance of being out on the
system and not being contacted by anybody . . . , that just lends
itself to further noncompliance. We need to get back to a place where
our passengers are honoring the honor system that we're using,'' he
said, estimating that as many as 40 to 70 percent of riders were
``nonfare'' passengers.\18\ Only once (in 2017) has Sound Transit met
its goal of farebox receipts covering 40 percent of costs.
Yet Sound Transit replaced fare enforcement officers with
ambassadors who provide educational materials to fare evaders rather
than issue citations. This occurred following a study that found black
riders received a higher percentage of citations than their percentage
of riders despite what appeared to be a neutral system of having all
passengers tap farecards into a reader to indicate payment.\19\
Legal Challenges to Fare Enforcement
Many systems have cut back on fare enforcement based on similar
equity studies, which claim that young, minority males are
disproportionately cited for nonpayment. Studies in Brooklyn, NY;
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Los Angeles, and Cleveland, showed similar
disparities.\20\ In 2018, the Washington Lawyer's Committee for Civil
Rights and Urban Affairs found that 91 percent of all citations or
summonses for fare evasion issued by WMATA's Transit Police were to
black riders, and that almost half the summons were to black young
adults under the age of 25.\21\ None of the studies speculate whether
the different levels of citations indicate different levels of fare
compliance.
But questions about fare enforcement may become moot. The
Washington State Supreme Court is expected to decide by the end of the
year whether fare enforcement by police officers constitutes a search
under the Fourth Amendment. The issue in State v. Meredith,\22\ is
whether by boarding a bus and accepting transportation, the rider
consented to a warrantless search following a fare enforcement's
officer's request for proof of payment. The rider provided a false
name, but based on an onsite fingerprint check, the officer determined
the rider's real name and placed him under arrest based on two existing
warrants. The case turns on whether the officer's request for proof of
payment qualifies as a warrantless seizure.
A similar case, State of Maryland v. Kennard Carter, decided on
Jan. 29, 2021, successfully challenged fare enforcement in the
Baltimore's barrier-free light-rail system.\23\ Deciding against the
Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), whose police officers
participated in routine sweeps to check for tickets, the court found
that sweeps were a warrantless seizure that passengers were unable to
reject, making any further actions by the police unlawful.
If the Washington case is decided in the plaintiffs' favor,
together with the Maryland case, transit systems are likely to further
curtail fare enforcement, effectively making transit free even if fares
are not officially eliminated.
Fare-Free Transit
Just as some may cheer a lessening of fare enforcement, there are
also many advocates for fare-free transit.
The most vocal, and thus far the most successful in a large city,
has been new Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who on March 1 made three local
bus lines free. The two-year pilot program is funded by $8 million of
the $558 million ARPA funds that Boston received. The funding is in
addition to the $500,000 in Covid-relief funds that underwrote fare-
free transit on one Boston line from August 2021 until the end of the
year. Smaller Massachusetts systems have also used ARPA funds to
eliminate bus fares.\24\
Wu hasn't indicated a source of funding if the pilot project goes
beyond two years but has implied that pandemic funding could continue
to be available to fund free transit.\25\ A big part of her mayoral
campaign was urging the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
(MBTA-or the T) to ``make the T free.'' Because the MBTA is a regional
authority; no one mayor can make such a decision, but Wu is supported
in her larger effort regionwide by Sen. Edward Markey (D), Rep. Ayanna
Pressley (D) and by the Boston Globe.
Pressley's Freedom to Move Act offers $5 billion in grants to
entice transit systems to go fare-free. To qualify, transit agencies
would have to improve safety and quality, particularly in low-income
and historically underserved communities. Those backing Pressley's bill
(and Markey's companion bill) view fare-free transit as part of a
larger social-justice agenda, believing that minority males are
targeted for enforcement disproportionately and that transit, like
schools and libraries, should be free.
Many climate advocates also believe it help to reduce pollution
through reduced traffic congestion. Ridership on buses also tends
toward women and minorities. For now, the focus is on buses, because
they are likely to be controlled by a single city rather than by a
regional board.
While a few cities eliminated fares during the COVID crisis and a
few are offering free or reduced fares as experiments or to lure back
riders, free transit has existed primarily in resort or university
towns, where riders were mostly tourists or students.\26\
Despite transit systems facing problems of crime and disorder,
discussions on eliminating fares have not considered whether fare
enforcement serves a positive function of providing capable guardians
who in addition to checking for fares, also serve as representatives of
the transit system. The existing studies on fare enforcement ignore
that fare enforcement provides an opportunity to provide patrons with a
visible security presence and a sense that someone is in charge of the
system. While this security presence may be threatening to some, it is
likely to reassure other patrons and enhance their expectations of a
safe and secure ride.
Surveys of riders almost universally indicate that their highest
priorities are safety, travel time, and service frequency and
reliability. Responses favor additional security, particularly among
women riders, who, based on income and employment opportunities are
often late-night and weekend riders.
Women's sense of vulnerability is not misplaced. Anyone following
the news in any city can see that women have more often been victims of
crimes in transit systems than male patrons. A recent study in Los
Angeles, a system whose former CEO called free transit a ``moral
obligation,''\27\ confirmed studies that women are more likely than men
to be concerned about safety on public transit.\28\ The report,
``Changing Lanes'', noted that Latina, Black, or Asian women were more
likely than White women to feel unsafe. It also reinforced earlier
findings that income plays a large role in transit dependency,
specifically that higher-income women can leverage travel resources.
They are less dependent on public transit than lower-income women.
While minority groups and riders of limited financial means might
see short-term benefits from reduced fare enforcement or from fare free
travel, they will be sacrificing protection from the criminals, drug
users, and mentally ill persons who are increasingly frequenting
transit locations.
Conclusion
I have said little so far about the Infrastructure Investment and
Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,
because it addresses neither transit security nor crime on transit
property or equipment.
A review of the FTA's IIJA posting\29\ makes this clear. The words
``security'' or ``crime'' do not appear in any of the 21 factsheets
explaining the law. Only assaults on transit workers are mentioned,
explaining that these must now be reported to the National Transit
Database (NTD), to which agencies have been required since 1974 to
report safety-related incidents.
But safety and security, although often used interchangeably, are
differentiated in most industries, including public transportation.
Safety--refers to harm from unintentional acts; not fastening bolts
properly, or incorrectly installing electrical circuits. Because these
acts occur without malice, we call them accidents.
Security--refers to harm from intentional acts, throwing someone
down a flight of stairs or taking their property, we call these crimes.
In 2005, the FTA, through a Memo of Understanding (the Annex),
transferred its Federal security efforts to the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), assigned primarily to its Transportation Security
Administration (TSA). While TSA provides some oversight; State safety
oversight agency (SSOA) managers and transit agency police/security
personnel at FTA meetings I attended voiced their concerns that TSA's
focus on infrastructure hardening to prevent terrorist activities does
not address the daily crimes and disruptions to public order discussed
here.
FTA grantees, under 49 U.S. Code 5307 (urbanized area formula
grants), with some exceptions, must spend 1 percent of their funds on
security annually, which many include lighting, surveillance cameras,
or emergency phone lines.\30\
But the FTA never directly oversaw transit agencies' security
operations. FTA reviewed these indirectly through its three-year audits
of SSOAs, primarily assuring that the States were reviewing agencies'
security policies and documentation during the States' reviews of
agencies within the States. The FTA's Office of Safety and Oversight no
longer includes security in either its 3-year safety or its expenditure
reviews. Some SSOAs continue to include security in their State reviews
of agencies under their jurisdiction.
As to fare-free transit . . . . It is unclear whether the
Infrastructure Law could provide funds for fare-free transit. A Jan. 7,
2022, FTA webinar31 outlines not only safety, but also equity
priorities. These include expanding access and opportunity to
underserved, overburdened, and disadvantaged communities; incorporating
equity into planning and funding decisions; increasing social and
economic opportunity by investing in equitable transit projects, and,
lastly, assuring that no less than 40 percent of the benefits of FTA
investments reach underserved, overburdened, and disadvantaged
communities.
Although I am a transit security professional and not a transit
planner, while the equity strategies do not mention fare-free travel, I
suspect that a planner could easily make fare-free pilot programs fit
these priorities.
Recommendations
I would like to leave you with the thought that despite the vast
investment of Federal dollars, transit in the United States is provided
locally or regionally and responds to demands at the local level.
Transit systems have an obligation to their riders--and to their
employees--to provide a safe and secure environment.
But if managers believe that those covering their non-federally
funded costs are more concerned with providing shelter to the unhoused,
injection sites for drug users, and fare-free transit than they are in
fixing the broken windows, patrons who can afford to will find other
ways to travel and existing staffing vacancies won't get filled.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on transit policing and
transit security. I am happy to answer any questions.
Notes
1. Dorothy Moses Schulz, ``Going Off the Rails'', City Journal, Jan.
15, 2021. https://www.city-journal.org/crime-plagued-public-
transit-hurts-city-economies
2. Subway Safety Plan. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/home/downloads/pdf/
press-releases/2022/the-subway-safety-plan.pdf
3. Dorothy Moses Schulz, ``Will Defunding Police Hamper Post-COVID
Recovery of Transit Systems?'' The Crime Report, Aug. 7, 2020.
https://thecrimereport.org/2020/08/07/will-defunding-police-hamper-
post-covid-recovery-of-transit-systems/
4. See for instance (for Denver): Janet Oravetz and Jennifer Meckles,
``41 Arrests Made at Union Station as Part of Enforcement
Operation'', 9News, Feb. 24, 2022. https://www.9news.com/article/
news/crime/denver-union-station-arrests/73-401142b4-0abf-4daf-8543-
0e9c6a6725da#:text=DENVER--Denver Poli.at; (for Seattle): Mike
Lindblom, ``Drugs on Buses Have Become an Everyday Hazard, Seattle-
Area Transit Workers Say'', The Seattle Times, Feb. 14, 2022.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/drugs-on-
buses-have-become-an-everyday-hazard-seattle-area-transit-workers-
say/; Eric Lendrum, ``Authorities Say Seattle's Public Transit
Unusable Due to Drugs and Crime'', American Greatness, Feb. 15,
2022. https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/15/authorities-say-seattles-
public-transit-is-unusable-due-to-drugs-and-crime/; Gary Horcher,
``Public Transit, The New Drug Den: What's Being Done to Keep You
Safe?'' KIRO7 News, Feb. 22, 2022. https://www.kiro7.com/news/
local/public-transit-new-drug-den-whats-being-done-keep-you-safe/
X6GLQLCLXZGOXOH655KPJ23RJM/; (for Minneapolis): Eric Rasmussen,
``Reports of Drug Use, Intoxication and Overdoses Real Depth of
Public Health Crisis on Light Rail'', ABC5 KSTP.com. June 8, 2021,
updated Jan. 10, 2022. https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/reports-
of-drug-use-intoxication-and-overdoses-reveal-depth-of-public-
health-crisis-on-light-rail/. A recent post on a transit police
blog from a manager who asked not to be identified asked what
systems were doing about employee absenteeism based on second-hand
smoke from fentanyl and what steps systems were taking to air out
smoke-filled train cars. One of the responses came from a firm
selling solutions for smoke and vapor complaints and for handling
discarded hypodermic needles on seats and floors.
5. Dorothy Moses Schulz, ``Will COVID-19 Derail Public Transit?''
National Review, May 29, 2020. https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/
05/coronavirus-mass-transit-long-term-effect-business-model-
unclear/#slide-1
6. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, ``Homelessness in Transit Environments
Volume I: Findings From a Survey of Public Transit Operators''. Los
Angeles: UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, December 2020.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/55d481p8
7. Dorothy Moses Schulz, ``Holdups, Hobos, and the Homeless: A Brief
History of Railroad Police in North America'', Police Studies 10,
(Summer) 1987, pp. 90-95. Reprinted, British Transport Police
Journal, Summer 1988.
8. George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, ``Broken Windows: The Police
and Neighborhood Safety'', The Atlantic, March 1982, https://
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/
. For a transit-specific crime prevention strategies other than
broken windows, see Dorothy Moses Schulz, ``Strategies for
Combining Community Crime Prevention With Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design: The Transit Experience'', Security Journal 7,
(1996), 253-257.
9. Dorothy Moses Schulz and Gareth Bryon, ``Is It Time To Bring Back
`Broken Windows' Policing?'' The Crime Report, July 21, 2021.
https://thecrimereport.org/2021/07/21/is-it-time-to-bring-back-
broken-windows-policing/
10. ``Recent Decline in Public Transportation Ridership: Analysis,
Causes, and Responses''. TCRP Research Report 231. Washington, DC:
The National Academies Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.17226/2632
11. ``Measuring and Managing Fare Evasion''. Pre-publication draft of
TCRP Research Report 234. Washington, DC: The National Academies
Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.17226/26514
12. Kyle Harris, ``Police Have Arrested More Than 500 People at Union
Station So Far This Year'', Denverite, Feb. 24, 2022. https://
denverite.com/2022/02/24/police-have-arrested-more-than-500-people-
at-union-station-so-far-this-year/
13. Darius Johnson, ``Increasing Crime at Union Station Calls for New
Courses of Action'', 9News, Dec. 7, 2021. https://www.9news.com/
article/news/local/increasing-crime-at-union-station/73-8a2dfda3-
dc5f-4d69-b99a-e1d36b3dee37
14. Michael Roberts, ``Union Station Police Raids Are a Doomed Return
to a Faded Policy'', Crime Says, Westwood, March 3, 3022. https://
www.westword.com/news/denver-union-station-police-sweeps-ripped-by-
critic-13565941
15. Harm Reduction Action Center, https://
www.harmreductionactioncenter.org. Accessed March 7, 2022.
16. Mike Lindblom, ``Drugs on Buses Have Become an Everyday Hazard,
Seattle-Area Transit Workers Say'', The Seattle Times, Feb. 14,
2022. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/
drugs-on-buses-have-become-an-everyday-hazard-seattle-area-transit-
workers-say/
17. Sara Jean Green, ``Seattle Police Flood Downtown After 2nd Homicide
in 4 Days'', The Seattle Times, March 3, 2022. https://
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/seattle-police-flood-
downtown-following-2nd-homicide-in-4-days/
18. David Kroman, ``With Fares Depressed, Sound Transit Grapples With
`Financially Unsustainable' Trajectory'', The Seattle Times, Jan.
28, 2022. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/
with-fares-depressed-sound-transit-grapples-with-financially-
unsustainable-trajectory/
19. Heidi Groover, ``Black Passengers Cited, Punished
Disproportionately by Sound Transit Fare Enforcement'', The Seattle
Times, Oct. 4, 2019. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/
transportation/faced-with-racial-disparities-sound-transit-debates-
changes-to-fare-enforcement/
20. For a detailed discussion of the Brooklyn, NY, study and references
to the other, see Harold Stolper and Jeff Jones, ``The Crime of
Being Short $2.75''. New York: The Community Service Society,
October. 2017. https://www.cssny.org/publications/entry/the-crime-
of-being-short-2.75
21. Washington Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs,
``UNFAIR: Disparities in Fare Enforcement by Metro Police'',
September 2018. https://www.washlaw.org/unfair-disparities-in-fare-
evasion-enforcement-by-metro-police/
22. State of Washington v. Zachery Kyle Meredith, No. 81203-3-1, 492 P.
3d 198, State v. Meredith, No. 81203-3-I--Washington--Case Law--
VLEX 886949386
23. State of Maryland v. Kennard Carter, Maryland Court of Appeals,
filed Jan. 29, 2021. State v. Carter, 012921 MDCA, 74-2019--
Maryland--Case Law--VLEX 856468856
24. Taylor Dolven, ``Boston City Council Approves $8 Million To Make 3
MBTA Bus Lines Fare-Free Starting Next Year'', The Boston Globe,
Dec. 1, 2021. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/01/metro/boston-
city-council-approves-8-million-make-three-mbta-bus-lines-fare-
free-starting-next-year/?p1=Art
25. Emma Platoff, ``Federal COVID Funds Offer Boston Mayor Michelle Wu
A Big Boost With Her Big Plans'', The Boston Globe, March 9. 2022.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/09/metro/federal-covid-funds-
offer-michelle-wu-big-boost-with-her-big-plans/?et-
rid=1011729407&s-campaig.
26. ``Implementation and Outcomes of Fare-Free Transit Systems''.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012. https://
doi.org/10.17226/22753
27. ``L.A. Metro To Study and Consider Eliminating Bus and Rail Fare'',
Mass Transit, https://www.masstransitmag.com/management/press-
release/21152206/los-angeles-county-metropolitan-transportation-
authority-metro-la-metro-to-study-and-consider-eliminating-bus-and-
rail-fares
28. ``Changing Lanes: A Gender Equity Transportation Study'', Final
Report. Los Angeles: LA Department of Transportation, 2021. https:/
/ladot.lacity.org/changinglanes
29. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. https://
www.transit.dot.gov/BIL
30. 49. U.S. Code 5307, Urbanized area formula grants, available at
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/5307.
31. Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Implementation Webinar Presentation,
Jan. 7, 2022. https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grants/
bipartisan-infrastructure-law-implementation-webinar-presentation
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANDAL O'TOOLE
Director, Thoreau Institute
March 15, 2022
Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and Members of the
Committee; thank you for inviting me to testify. My name is Randal
O'Toole, and I am a policy analyst with nearly 50 years of experience
studying transportation and land-use issues. Today I'll discuss recent
transit trends, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the
role of urban transit in a postpandemic world.
Pandemics do not change things so much as they accelerate trends
that were already taking place.\1\ One such trend is the decline of the
importance of public transit in the day-to-day lives of most Americans,
which has been going on for more than a century. The acceleration of
this trend raises the question of why we continue to subsidize
something that is irrelevant to the vast majority of Americans outside
of New York City.
In 1920, the average urban American rode transit nearly 300 times a
year. In 1964, when Congress passed the Urban Mass Transportation Act,
it had fallen to 62 trips per year.\2\ Over the next 55 years, Federal,
State, and local governments tried to boost transit ridership with well
over $1.5 trillion (after adjusting for inflation) in subsidies. This
effort failed: by 2019 ridership was down to just 37 trips per urban
resident.\3\ Less than 5 percent of working Americans rode transit to
work, down from more than 12 percent in 1960.\4\ In recent years,
transit declined not just in trips per urban resident but in total
trips: between 2014 and 2019, transit systems in Miami, Cleveland, St.
Louis, and several other urban areas lost 25 percent or more of their
riders while transit ridership nationwide declined by 7 percent.\5\
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act added another $39
billion to this record of subsidies, plus the better part of $1 billion
for buying electric buses. But this is no more likely to reverse
transit's fortunes than the previous $1.5 trillion did.
Transit's long-term decline is due to increasing auto ownership,
decentralization of jobs away from downtowns, and decentralization of
residences into low-density suburbs and exurbs. More recently, the
growth of telecommuting further reduced transit, as the number of
people working at home exceeded the number taking transit to work for
the first time in 2017.\6\
Commuters and other urban travelers have good reasons not to use
transit, as it is inferior to its competitors in almost every way: it
is slow, it doesn't go where most people need to go, and it is
expensive. The American Public Transportation Association admits that
transit vehicles average just 15 miles per hour, and that doesn't count
the time required to get to a transit stop, wait for a vehicle to
arrive, and then get from the transit stop to a destination.\7\ By
comparison, automobiles, which can go door-to-door in most cases,
average 30 to 40 miles per hour in most urban areas.
Transit's slow speeds are compounded by the fact that it doesn't go
where most people want to go. Most transit agencies run hub-and-spoke
systems centered around downtowns. That made sense a hundred years ago
when most urban jobs were in downtowns, but today only about 8 percent
of urban jobs are in central city downtown areas.\8\ For many people,
getting to a job or another destination by transit can be a 2-hour or
more ordeal.
The University of Minnesota Accessibility Observatory calculates
that, in 2019, the average resident of one of the nation's 50 largest
urban areas could reach nearly twice as many jobs in a 20-minute auto
drive as a 60-minute transit trip. Transit is so slow that a reasonably
fit bicycle rider could reach more jobs in trips of 50 minutes or less
than transit riders taking the same amount of time.\9\ This makes
transit third-class transportation.
Finally, transit is extraordinarily expensive. In 2019, transit
fares averaged 30 cents a passenger-mile.\10\ By comparison, Americans
spent just 25 cents a passenger-mile driving their cars and light
trucks.\11\ On top of this, subsidies to transit were more than 100
times greater, per passenger-mile, than subsidies to highways: while
highway subsidies averaged about a penny per passenger-mile, transit
subsidies averaged $1.08.\12\ Altogether, transit agencies spend more
than five times as much money moving passenger miles as the cost of the
average automobile.
Despite these disadvantages, the transit industry has been very
clever in coming up with reasons why taxpayers should continue to
subsidize it. They claim that increasing subsidies to transit will
relieve traffic congestion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote
economic development, and help low-income people out of poverty. None
of these claims are true.
Spending more money on transit can't relieve congestion if the
spending doesn't result in more transit riders. In recent years,
numerous urban areas including Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul,
Portland, St. Louis and others have spent heavily on new transit
projects only to see overall transit ridership decline. Los Angeles is
the worst-case example: for every new rider transit has gained from
building new light-rail lines, the region has lost five bus riders,
mainly because the high cost of rail transit has forced LA Metro to
reduce bus service and increase fares.\13\
Even if spending money on transit increased ridership, it wouldn't
necessarily reduce congestion if the transit systems end up blocking
traffic. The environmental impact statement for Maryland's Purple Line,
which is now under construction, calculated that the line would add
millions of hours of delay to the region's commuters per year because
the light-rail vehicles would occupy lanes once open to
automobiles.\14\
Nor is transit environmentally friendly. Outside of New York City,
San Francisco, and one or two other urban areas, transit uses far more
energy and emits more greenhouse gases per passenger-mile than the
average car. Diesel buses are particularly dirty, producing more
greenhouse gases per passenger-mile than the average SUV.\15\ Transit
agencies hope to fix this with battery-powered buses, but most
electricity in this country comes from burning fossil fuels. The
electricity powering the Washington Metrorail system, for example,
generated 286 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-mile in 2019,
compared with 200 grams for the average car and 244 grams for the
average light truck.
Whenever I hear of a transit project that supposedly stimulated
economic development, a little investigation reveals that this
development received millions of dollars in other subsidies, usually
through a mechanism called tax-increment financing (TIF). For example,
a 2009 New York Times article claimed that ``new rail transit lines
stimulate urban revival.''\16\ But all of the developments cited in the
article actually received TIF subsidies.\17\
The city of Portland discovered in the 1990s found that TIF without
transit would stimulate economic development but new transit projects
without TIF failed to stimulate new development. So whenever it built a
transit project, it accompanied it with TIF and then credited the new
development to the transit project, never mentioning the millions or
hundreds of millions of other subsidies it gave to that
development.\18\
Far from helping low-income people, transit does low-income
families more harm than good. In 2019, only 5 percent of people earning
less than $25,000 a year took transit to work, compared with 7 percent
of people earning more than $75,000 a year.\19\ At least 75 percent of
taxes used to support transit are regressive.\20\ That means that the
95 percent of low-income people who don't ride transit were
disproportionately paying to subsidize transit rides that were
disproportionately taken by high-income workers. That makes transit one
of the most socially unjust institutions we have.
The pandemic has accelerated all these trends. The biggest
acceleration is in the number of people working at home, as the
pandemic taught both employers and employees that workers can be
productive without coming into expensive downtown offices 5 days a
week. Many employers are now planning for hybrid work schedules where
people work at home at least 2 or 3 days a week.
The best estimates are that, after the pandemic ends, about four
times as many people will be working at home on any given day as before
the pandemic.\21\ This will take an especially large telecommuting
reduced the number of people driving alone to work by 16 percent, but
it reduced the number commuting by transit by 41 percent.\22\
Transit will be especially hurt because many downtown offices will
have people come in to work only a few days a week. People have a
travel budget measured in time as well as dollars and on average seem
to be willing to spend about five or six hours a week commuting. If
they have to commute only twice a week, they will be willing to live
much further from their workplace, which means transit won't work for
them as well as it previously did.
Due to all these factors--remote work, loss of downtown jobs, and
decentralization of residences--transit will never come close to
carrying as many riders as it did in 2019. Of all modes of travel,
transit has been slowest to recover from the pandemic. Driving
recovered to more than 100 percent of prepandemic levels as long ago as
June 2021.\23\ In December 2021, domestic air travel was more than 87
percent and Amtrak more than 80 percent of prepandemic levels.\24\
Transit, however, was only 56 percent, and in January 2022 it dipped to
47 percent.\25\ I estimate that, in the long run, it will never recover
more than about 75 percent of prepandemic ridership, or about 25 trips
per urban resident, and even that may be optimistic.
During the pandemic, transit agencies argued that they were
carrying ``essential workers'' to work. If so, they weren't carrying
very many of them and it would have been far less expensive to find
other transportation for those people than to keep subsidizing transit.
Census Bureau data indicate that only 3 percent American workers took
transit to work on any given workday in 2020.\26\ Meanwhile, transit
subsidies rose from $58 billion to $64 billion and will be even greater
in 2021. With fewer riders, costs per passenger-mile rose to well above
$2, eight times the cost of driving.\27\
The latest argument in favor of increasing transit subsidies is
that it would somehow be socially just to eliminate transit fares. But
it's no more socially just to increase subsidies with regressive taxes
than it is to expect low-income people to live with third-class
transportation while almost everyone else enjoys first-class transport.
Currently, the main obstacle to auto ownership for many is the fact
that banks charge up to 25 percent interest for used-car loans to
people with poor or no credit ratings. If we are truly concerned about
the plight of low-income people, giving them low-interest loans to buy
a good used car will do more to help them out of poverty than free
transit.\28\
Before the pandemic, New York City was the only American city where
transit played a meaningful role in transportation. Even in cities such
as Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, transit was only
really important for downtown workers. Elsewhere, transit's only
relevance to the vast majority of Americans is as a tax burden.
The real problem with transit is not a shortage of funds but that
transit agencies have too much money and they spend that money on
things that do little to help transportation uses, such as building
multibillion-dollar light-rail lines and taking lanes away from
automobiles on congested roads. More than a half century of growing
transit subsidies should have taught us that people are not going to
give up the convenience and economy of private automobiles to ride
slow, inefficient mass transit where they are likely to become victims
of crime and infectious diseases. At the same time, reducing subsidies
would make transit agencies more dependent on fares and therefore more
responsive to the needs of people who continue to ride transit.
It is time to stop throwing money at an obsolete form of
transportation. Ending subsidies to transit will still allow some
transit to exist, but it will be more efficient, serve mainly those
people who truly need it, and rely mainly on buses that share lanes
with other vehicles.
If transit must be subsidized, make the subsidies proportional to
the fares collected by each transit agency. That will give the transit
agencies powerful incentives to cater to fare-paying customers.
However, if we are seriously interested in reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, helping low-income people out of poverty, and solving other
social problems, there are better ways of doing so than by continuing
subsidies to a third-class form of transportation.
Notes
1. Davies, Stephen, ``Going Viral: The History and Economics of
Pandemics'' (London: Institute for Economic Affairs, 2020), p. 22,
iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Going-Viral.pdf.
2. Public Transit Fact Book 2021 (Washington: American Public
Transportation Association, 2021), appendix A.
3. National Transit Database 2019 (Washington: Federal Transit
Administration, 2020), Service spreadsheet.
4. American Community Survey 2019 (Washington: Census Bureau, 2020),
table B08301.
5. National Transit Database Historical Time Series (Washington:
Federal Transit Administration, 2020), table TS2.1.
6. American Community Survey 2017 (Washington: Census Bureau, 2018),
table B08301.
7. Public Transit Fact Book 2020 (Washington: American Public
Transportation Association, 2021), p. 5.
8. Wendell Cox, ``United States Central Business Districts''
(Downtowns), 4th Edition (Belleville, IL: Demographia, 2020), table
1.
9. Andrew Owen and Brendan Murphy, ``Access Across America: Auto 2019''
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2021), p. 6; Andrew Owen and
Brendan Murphy, ``Access Across America: Transit 2019''
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2020), p. 4; Andrew Owen and
Brendan Murphy, ``Access Across America: Biking 2019''
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2020), p. 5.
10. Calculated from National Transit Database 2019, Service, Fares,
Operating Expense, and Capital Expense spreadsheets.
11. Calculated by dividing expenditures on auto ownership in National
Income and Product Accounts (Washington: Bureau of Economic
Analysis, 2021), table 2.5.5 by automobile passenger miles in
Highway Statistics 2019, table VM-1, and by average auto
occupancies of 1.67 from 2017 National Household Travel Survey
(Washington: Federal Highway Administration, 2018), table 16.
12. Calculated by subtracting diversions of highway user fees to
transit and other non-highway uses from general funds spent on
highways in Highway Statistics 2019, table HF-10 and dividing by
passenger miles.
13. Thomas A. Rubin and James E. Moore, II, ``Metro's 28 by 28 Plan: A
Critical Review'' (Los Angeles: Reason Foundation, 2019), chapter
3, pp. 3-4.
14. Purple Line Traffic Analysis Technical Report (Annapolis: Maryland
Department of Transportation, 2008), pp. 41-42.
15. Calculated from National Transit Database 2019, Energy and Service
spreadsheets. For details on methodology, see Randal O'Toole,
``Urban Transit: Browner Than Ever'' (Camp Sherman, Oregon: Thoreau
Institute, 2021).
16. Amy Cortese, ``New Rail Lines Spur Urban Revival'', New York Times,
June 13, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/realestate/
14sqft.html?--r=1&scp=1&sq=urban%20revival&st=cse.
17. Randal O'Toole, ``Suckered Again'', The Antiplanner, June 15, 2009,
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=1471.
18. Randal O'Toole, ``Debunking Portland: The City That Doesn't Work''
(Washington: Cato Institute, 2007), pp. 8-9.
19. American Community Survey 2019, table B08119.
20. National Transit Database 2019, Revenue Sources spreadsheet.
21. Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis, ``Why
Working at Home Will Stick'' (Cambridge: National Bureau of
Economic Research, 2021), p. 30.
22. American Community Survey 2020, table XK200801; American Community
Survey 2019, table B08301.
23. Traffic Volume Trends (Washington: Federal Highway Administration,
June 2019 and June 2021).
24. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, ``Revenue Passenger-Miles, All
Carriers--All Airports'', 2022, https://www.transtats.bts.gov/
Data--Elements.aspx?Data=3; Monthly Performance Report December
2021 (Washington: Amtrak, 2022), p. 5.
25. National Transit Database Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release
(Washington: Federal Transit Administration, 2022), https://
www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2022-03/
January%202022%20Ajusted%20Database.xlsx.
26. American Community Survey 2020, table XK200801.
27. National Transit Database 2019 and 2020, Fare, Operating Expense,
and Capital Expense spreadsheets.
28. See Randal O'Toole, ``Reducing Poverty by Increasing Auto
Ownership'', (Camp Sherman, OR: Thoreau Institute, 2020), for a
review of case studies showing that auto ownership helps people out
of poverty better than free transit.
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR TOOMEY
FROM JOANNA M. PINKERTON
Q.1. During your testimony, you described how the Central Ohio
Transit Authority (COTA) uses coding technology and advanced
technology systems to assist with predictive maintenance for
the agency's state of good repair improvements.
When did COTA begin to utilize advanced technology systems
for predictive maintenance?
A.1. COTA began a pilot of our Vehicle Intelligence Program in
Spring 2021.
Q.2. How has advanced technology systems helped the lifecycle
of COTA's transportation assets and infrastructure?
A.2. The current pilot runs the system on 10 vehicles and has
prevented a minimum of 20 road calls so far. COTA has recently
approved a contract to implement the Vehicle Intelligence
Program to the rest of the fleet by end of the summer. We will
have a dedicated team member who will consistently engage with
the software. This team member will establish the parameters
and monitor the alarms that help our vehicle maintenance team
with true predictive maintenance.
The goal of this system is to improve the reliability of
the transit vehicles so that the full life cycle can be
utilized and to reduce the number of road calls which can
potentially disrupt service.
Q.3. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (49 U.S.C.
5312(b)(4)) includes a new program-the Accelerated
Implementation and Deployment of Advanced Digital Construction
Management Systems-that directs the Secretary of Transportation
to promote and document the application of advanced digital
construction management systems, practices, performance, and
benefits.
Do you believe agencies like MARTA COTA may benefit from
this program? If so, please explain why.
A.3. I understand that the use of advanced digital construction
management systems has been underway for highway construction
projects for some time, supported in part by the Federal
Highway Administration's focus on digital construction under
Every Day Counts 6. This provision at Section 5312 is new for
the Federal transit program, so I would expect to see FTA
implementation guidance soon.
At COTA, we are innovators, always interested in new ways
to advance projects more effectively. Digital modeling can
optimize maintenance and asset management--which is a priority
for all transit agencies.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR SINEMA
FROM JOANNA M. PINKERTON
Q.1. One way to grow an economy is to make the people that
power it more productive. Could you share a bit from your
perspective about the productivity gains for families, workers,
and businesses that fast, safe, and effective transit
authorized under our Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
will provide? Please utilize specific examples where
appropriate and valuable.
A.1. First of all, I would like to thank you for your strong
leadership--and bipartisan work with Senator Portman--in
developing the IIJA legislation. The value of the
infrastructure investment under the IIJA to Central Ohio cannot
be overstated.
COTA's LinkUS initiative exemplifies our belief in the
power of high-frequency transit routes as a catalyst for smart
development. In turn, the value of developing housing,
businesses and other amenities along high-frequency transit
routes comes from the improved accessibility it provides
residents, customers at businesses along the route, and
employees throughout the region who will benefit from safe and
reliable commutes.
Intel's plans for an initial investment of more than $20
billion to construct two new chip factories in Licking County,
Ohio, will transform this mostly rural county, requiring
considerable investment in the surrounding infrastructure to
realize the full promise of this project. For projects of this
magnitude, Federal support in the form of IIJA funding is
essential. Transit will likely play an important role in the
commutes of many of the 3,000 Intel employees that will work in
the first two factories.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR TOOMEY
FROM COLLIE GREENWOOD
Q.1. Has the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
(MARTA) utilized any advanced technology systems to address
construction, maintenance, or operations of its system? If so,
please describe the tangible benefits that resulted from
utilizing these systems.
A.1. MARTA has two new advanced technology systems to help
streamline the construction, maintenance and operations of the
transit system. First, MARTA is deploying Unifier as the
project lifecycle management solution from Oracle Primavera for
capital planning, project delivery, cost control, and
facilities and real estate management. Primavera Unifier
provides governance across all project phases, from planning
and building to operations and maintenance. Unifier includes
unlimited storage of portfolio, program and project documents.
MARTA has an ambitious capital expansion program, and
Unifier tracks a project from planning through operations and
management. This reduces friction between project teams as they
evolve and allows us to work seamlessly with external project
team members. Currently, Unifier interfaces with our Oracle
Financial System which enables us to quickly and efficiently
develop a More MARTA monthly report for our funding
jurisdictions.
MARTA has also recently deployed Bluebeam to review plans
and help manage our as-built construction documents. Bluebeam
is a technical tool that streamlines the ability to mark-up PDF
documents both technically and administratively. Bluebeam
reduces the process of Project ``redlines'' on hard copies by
over 50%, saving on average three days per submittal throughout
the life of a project. Our Station Rehabilitation Program has
been able to document QA/QC procedures more efficiently with
multiple stakeholders, consultants and contractors which
reduces time spent and more importantly, risk.
Q.2. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (49 U.S.C.
5312(b)(4)) includes a new program-the Accelerated
Implementation and Deployment of Advanced Digital Construction
Management Systems-that directs the Secretary of Transportation
to promote and document the application of advanced digital
construction management systems, practices, performance, and
benefits.
Do you believe agencies like MARTA may benefit from this
program? If so, please explain why.
A.2. Even if MARTA never applies for a grant under this new
program, the market penetration of these new products across
the industry will benefit MARTA as staff and consultants gain
command over of these tools to benefit transit construction
management systems across the U.S.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR SINEMA
FROM COLLIE GREENWOOD
Q.1. One way to grow an economy is to make the people that
power it more productive. Could you share a bit from your
perspective about the productivity gains for families, workers,
and businesses that fast, safe, and effective transit
authorized under our Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
will provide? Please utilize specific examples where
appropriate and valuable.
A.1. I began my career in transit as a bus operator, so I've
seen personally how customers are impacted by the level of
transit service. One of the first initiatives I worked on when
I arrived at MARTA was a series of improvements to bus
amenities and a focus on bus service enhancement and expansion.
Bus is the backbone of public transit and bus service,
particularly bus rapid transit, has the potential to be
transformative for a community. MARTA's first project to enter
the Capital Investment Grant Program in two decades, the
Clayton Southlake Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, is an
upgrade of one of MARTA's busiest bus routes, serving the
southern portion of our service area. It is projected that the
project will save a transit rider 19 minutes on the length of
the trip, from College Park Station to Southlake Mall.
Additionally, the FTA recently awarded MARTA a $1 million
Transit-Oriented Development Corridor Planning Grant to analyze
and develop a potential project list of community developments
at and around those proposed BRT stations in order to amplify
the positive benefits of transit investments in the area. The
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will amplify existing
programs and create new ones that will improve efficiency and
productivity, and help more destinations be in reach for metro
Atlanta transit riders.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR SINEMA
FROM GREG REGAN
Q.1. One way to grow an economy is to make the people that
power it more productive. Could you share a bit from your
perspective about the productivity gains for families, workers,
and businesses that fast, safe, and effective transit
authorized under our Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
will provide? Please utilize specific examples where
appropriate and valuable.
A.1. Response not received in time for publication.