Using T4America’s handy Senate/House comparison table and AP’s compromise highlights list, I put together this quick comparison of three versions of the stimulus.

According to the Post, Congress will vote on (and presumably pass) the bill in the next day or two, for Obama to sign by Monday.

The AP list doesn’t mention the Senate’s $5.5 billion transportation discretionary fund. Presumably that means it got the axe (Nope). That’s sure to upset some local governments hoping for earmarks, as well as folks hoping to see stimulus dollars applied
to New Starts projects. Indeed, that is unfortunate. On the other hand, if losing the discretionary fund is what it took to pay for
the drastically higher spending on high-speed and intercity rail, then that’s probably a good trade for the country in the long run.

The relatively smaller transit number does hurt, and should be mentioned. The big question on my mind now, though, is what sort of national rail system that kind of money can pay for. It’s not enough to build all this, but it’s a good chunk. Enough for something tangible.

Earlier this week I wrote that fare increases would be preferable to service cuts on Metro. That is still true.

According to GGW (via WaPo), suggested cuts to Metro include ending late night service, opening later, increasing train headways, suspending the Yellow line in off-peak hours and running a shuttle from Huntington to King Street, closing some entrances at stations with multiple portals, and eliminating or consolidating some bus routes.

All this at a time when more people than ever need the system.

The reason? WMATA’s $1.3 billion operating budget is $154 million short. To cover the shortfall the agency will cut $81 million from the back-office, including hundreds of eliminated jobs. To cover the remaining $73 million difference, they either need more money or fewer expenses. Since the agency promised last year not to raise fares again so soon, service cuts are on the table. They shouldn’t be, but they are.

It’s worth asking though, are there other sources of money out there?

The federal stimulus would be a great place for cash, but its focus isn’t on operating existing systems, and what money it contains for transit is under constant attack. It’s an unlikely source.

Another option would be to ask the local governments that help fund Metro every year. Unfortunately, all the counties and cities surrounding Washington are as broke as WMATA itself. They have no money to send.

The states likewise have their own problems, although $73 million split three ways isn’t outside the realm of the possible.

But the thing is, there’s been a WMATA bailout in the works for some time now. Remember that federal bill that authorizes $150 million per year for WMATA on the condition that DC, MD and VA match it with a dedicated funding source? That would be $300 million per year. Oh yeah. Problem is, of course, that money isn’t ready. The states and District are working on it, but to get that money requires all three governments to adopt identical bills amending the WMATA compact agreement. It takes time, and while the process is moving forward in good faith, it may not happen soon enough to save Metro this year.

But it occurs to BeyondDC that the federal government is clearly willing to pony up to invest in the agency that keeps the federal city alive. If Congress is willing pay out $150 million per year on the condition that dedicated local funding be provided, might Congress agree to $73 million of that money now, given that the locals are moving forward on their matches in good faith? I’m not even talking about new money here, just an advance on the $150 million already authorized.

The only reason this strikes me as a bad idea is if WMATA has already assumed it will have that money in its budget. I don’t think that’s true (it would be a pretty egregious case of counting chickens before they hatch), but even if so, a second bailout should be on the table. $73 million is chump change at the federal level, but even that could be halved if the feds paid 50% of it ($36.5 million) and asked the states to each pay 1/3 of the rest. The states have got their own problems, of course, but 1/3 of 50% of $73 million is only a little over $12 million. $12 million is doable. Virginia could pay its entire share just by reallocating money currently programmed for the widening of I-66 in Arlington that nobody in Arlington supports anyway.

So while there is probably no money to be found from the localities, the feds could step in and help, or strike a deal with the states. Those scenarios seem completely reasonable, and not budget-busting in the least.

How about it, Congress? A $73 million bailout to keep the capital of the United States running. We don’t even have to call it a bailout. We’ll call it a cash advance on the $150 million to which you’ve already agreed.

“If service levels are to be maintained, additional revenue will have to be found”

That’s the sad truth, according to regional transportation guru Chris Zimmerman (on the Boards of WMATA, NVTC, NVTA, TPB, VRE, and Arlington), who laments that the Federal stimulus will focus on creating new jobs while not working to save jobs that transit agencies all over the country are being forced to slash as their budgets collapse due to the recession (900 from WMATA alone). Furthermore, history shows that transit agencies hurt themselves when they cut service, since lower service often leads to fewer riders. Raise fares, and customers complain but stick around. Cut service, and more of them leave.

Unfortunately, this probably means that Metro will have to raise fares. If the alternative is infrequent trains and shuttered entrances, I hope they do.

The Alexandria towers. H/t DCmud.

• Despite the economy, all real estate development in the region has not ceased. A pair of approximately 20-story towers in Alexandria received design approval last week, and multiple proposals have been submitted to redevelop the old DC General Hospital site south of RFK Stadium.
• WMATA, which is facing serious cuts, spent $5 million on extra service for Inauguration Day. The agency will submit a request for reimbursement from Congress, but will they get it all back?
• The Virginia Legislature is considering its own Commonwealth-oriented economic recovery bill. It focuses on increased investment in educational infrastructure, tax credits and other incentives for businesses, and use of Virginia-based banks for investment by Virginia governmental entities.
• WTOP reports that the Purple Line could get stimulus money. The Post reports that it probably isn’t eligible for money under the House version of the stimulus, but could be under the Senate version. The most likely real answer is probably that Purple Line funding will depend on Maryland’s DOT, which in any event will get a lot of money under normal formula distributions, and should have some leeway regarding how it spends that money.
• In well DUH news, WTOP reports that transit use and walking increase in the more urban regional core, and decrease in the more suburban regional fringe. Snark aside, the Household Travel Survey put out by the Transportation Planning Board every few years is actually very helpful to planners, and results in much more extensive information than “people in the suburbs drive more than people in the city”. But don’t tell WTOP.
• The Post has an article about Chinatown’s non-Chinese character.
• Finally, to leave everyone with a good rage, as noted in the BDC twitter feed, Gristmill reports that the auto makers will use some of their bailout dollars to sue states over emissions standards.

And that’s why the stimulus needs to focus on infrastructure.

See Avent and GGW for more on the stimulus.

The urbanist blogosphere has been atwitter with disappointment about the number of road projects likely to be included in Obama’s infrastructure stimulus package. The exception has been the economist Avent, with whom BeyondDC agrees.

With the stimulus, it seems some are expecting not-yet-President Obama to take the first big step away from the roads-first mentality of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, that is probably not possible given the nature of what the stimulus is all about.

The stimulus package is not intended to change anything except the economy. To have an effect on the economy, it needs to provide immediate jobs. To provide immediate jobs, the stimulus package has to target projects that are already totally through the planning process and ready for construction. The federal planning process takes years. If we wait for new projects to go through it, it will be too late to make any difference to the current economic situation.

Given the nature of transportation planning over the past decade, there are a lot of road projects ready to go and not very many transit projects. This is unfortunate, but it’s not Obama’s fault, nor is there anything he can do about it. Obama may be the country’s first urbanist president, but he’s not a wizard. He can’t travel magically back in time and change planning that happened last year. Thus, the stimulus package is necessarily full of road projects.

If anyone disagrees with the need for an infrastructure stimulus package in the first place, that’s reasonable. But if we are to launch such a package, a lot of road projects will necessarily be included, because road projects are what’s ready to go right now.

Next year Congress will take up the issue of infrastructure spending over the next 6 years via its authorization of the next TEA bill. *That* bill is where Obama and the transit camp have room to move. *That’s* where we should focus our attention, as urbanists. Getting too upset about the stimulus package including roads is unrealistic, and needlessly costs Obama political capital he will need when it comes time to write a bill that actually can move in the right direction.

Now, on the subject of being disappointed with Obama, tapping a rural Republican for DOT boss might be a better reason. BeyondDC doesn’t know much about this LaHood character, except that he’s a moderate from rural Illinois and is supposedly a supporter of Amtrak. If it’s fair to say the pick is at least probably a big step up from Mary Peters, it’s also fair to say the pick isn’t as progressive as we’d hoped.

The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority met last night to approve the regional list of ready-to-go projects eligible for federal stimulus aid.

In total, NVTA suggested $2.4 billion in projects, broken down into three categories: Projects ready-to-go within 3 months, 6 months and 18 months. Included are $665.4 million for road projects and $1.7 billion in transit/multi-modal projects. The big ticket items (> $25 million) are as follows:

The list also includes smaller projects such as finishing the Crystal City / Potomac Yards busway and building interchanges at some additional intersections outside the Beltway. There are a lot of new bus orders and minor road widenings. Interesting to BeyondDC is the $900 million for the Silver line. Could it be that the FTA dropped its objections to the line because the writing on the wall said it would be included in the stimulus anyway? Seems possible.

Of course, just because NVTA suggests these projects doesn’t mean they’ll be funded. Those in the 18-months-away category are probably pretty unlikely to get any money, since 18 months is an awfully long time way away in this economy. But regardless, here’s your list of what Northern Virginia would do right away, if only it had the cash.

The current incarnation of the automaker bailout may have suffered a blow, but surely we’ve not heard the end of it. May as well throw out a few thoughts.

First off, it’s important to recognize why a bailout is important. BeyondDC cares absolutely nothing for any of the big three as companies. We have no qualms at all about seeing the GM “American icon” fail, on those terms. We support a bailout because one way or another the big three employ at least 1.6 million Americans, and throwing that many blue collar workers onto the streets is the last thing we need as our economy enters a serious recession.

So given that any bailout must be focused on saving jobs, not companies, bailout planners should recognize that the big three are failing because their business model is dying, and that therefore the business model needs changing. Throwing billions of dollars at this problem won’t make it go away if the dollars don’t address the root cause.

So let’s send the big three some cash, but let’s put some serious strings on it. Our knowledge of complicated economic issues is strictly amateur, but the following all seem like good ideas:

1. No more off-shoring jobs. Period.
2. 10% of each company’s factory output must be converted to things unrelated to vehicles that travel on roads within 7-8 years, and 20% within 15 years. This would diversify the product lines of the companies and help restore America’s manufacturing base. Some in the blogosphere have suggested we look to the big three to produce the next generation of transit vehicles. That’s not a bad idea, but there could be other things that need producing too. Why tie hands?
3. No golden parachutes, luxury jets, etc.
4. Drastically reduce production of environmentally destructive vehicles and increase the production of clean(er) ones. This has been part of the debate already and the costs associated with it are part of the reason the big three claim to need a bailout in the first place, but if we’re to subsidize the industry further, they damn well better be serious about it.

LOL. From Avent, via Grist:

Given the way that president Bush has used executive orders to gut, among other things, environmental rules, it would be deliciously poetic if Barack Obama used his authority under the Clean Air Act, as clarified by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v EPA, to enact a nationwide cap-and-trade regime. Conservatives would scream about executive overreach and industry groups would say that Obama was working to kill the economy, but I suspect the hubbub would die away pretty quickly (especially once consumers saw that energy prices didn’t immediately skyrocket). It would also allow Congress to keep its powder dry for other legislative fights.

As if public transit doesn’t have enough money problems in this country, the ongoing national economic crisis is adding a new twist: Thanks to federal rule changes, financial deals that WMATA and several other transit agencies are a part of have become invalidated, and the banks involved are demanding immediate payments of millions of dollars, hurting transit service. WaPo breaks it down in this article. The most interesting part, besides Metro’s CFO calling out the banks in question for taking “their greed out unnecessarily on public transit”, is that apparently this all began because the FTA encouraged transit agencies to help banks find questionable tax shelters.

It doesn’t take an economist to know that this stinks, on multiple levels.