Map-21 is a highway bill, not a transportation bill, it cuts support for public transit in favor of highway expansion



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AT State Circumvention

State compliance is normal means. The federal government gives funding with designated use to the states in the squo


Atlanta Regional Commission No Date (“Financing Transportation” http://www.atlantaregional.com/transportation/financing-transportation) APB

As the federally-designated metropolitan planning organization (MPO) of the Atlanta Region, ARC selects projects of significant regional benefit to be funded by a portion of the Federal transportation funds that are authorized for the Region. Additionally ARC ensures that the long-range Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) remains fiscally constrained per Federal guidelines—meaning that the total costs of all projects to be completed within the 30-year time horizon never exceed the anticipated levels of available funding. An estimated $1.5-$2 billion annually—depending on economic and fiscal conditions—is spent on transportation in the Atlanta Region. Funding for transportation in the Region is derived from various sources on the federal, state, regional, and local levels. Federal Funding An estimated $600 million to $800 million of transportation funding in the Region—comprising an average 35 percent of all transportation funding in the Region— is derived from the Federal government. Federal funding for transportation is authorized through a transportation bill which sets upper limits on funding by categories for both highways and transit facilities. Revenues to support Federal spending on transportation stem from the Highway Trust Fund—which is supported by a national fuel tax (18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel fuel). The Highway Trust Fund is comprised of two accounts: Highway Account (administered by FHWA) Mass Transit Account (administered by FTA) The highway account is the larger of the two accounts with a monetary value of roughly 71% of the total Highway Trust Fund value.



States conform to federal government grant use requirements in the squo, Transparency Act ensures


AASHTO 10 (“Implications for State DOTs of Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Data Reporting Requirements Briefing Report: Executive Summary” http://www.transportation.org/sites/SOFMA/docs/Updated%20FFATA%20Briefing.pdf) APB

At the direction of Congress, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently launched a major new Federal government-wide grant-reporting requirement that has significant implications for state DOTs. As per Transparency Act language, all state DOTs must report information about the name, amount and location of every new federally funded sub-award they issue within 30 days of the end of the month in which an award was made. In addition, OMB requires reporting on senior executive compensation levels for recipients of selected sub-awards. For state DOTs, the new Transparency Act requirements will require reporting on all sub-awards issued to other public agencies, including MPOs, local governments, transit agencies and other public entities based on the interpretation published by FHWA on October 20th, 2010 and available at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/transparencyact/qandas.htm. Data that states report will be stored and displayed in a searchable database at OMB’s USAspending.gov website. Reporting requirements are separate from those required for ARRA and new ARRA-funded transportation projects are excluded from the Transparency Act requirements. FHWA is beginning to develop a reporting process that meets OMB’s requirements. Creating a satisfactory reporting process will require partnership between FHWA and state DOTs. The new reporting requirements will necessitate that state DOTs dedicate staff time and financial resources - initially to adapting their existing data collection systems to track the new Transparency Act-related information and subsequently to reporting it on an ongoing monthly basis. The extent to which FHWA will be able to pre-populate the reporting system with data from existing systems will affect the additional level of effort required.



Solvency - Planning

Democratically accountable planning solves


Swanstrom and Barrett 7 (Todd, Professor in Community Collaboration at Saint Louis University, and Laura, Public Policy and Executive Director of Transportation Equity Network, “The Road to Jobs: The Flight for Transportation Equity”, Social Policy, 37(3/4), p. 76) DMD
Federal transportation policies are not easy to organize around. For over half a century, a growth machine has dominated federal highway policies, cemented (so to speak) by jobs, campaign contributions, and advance knowledge of highway locations. Swimming in a murky alphabet soup of acronyms (ISTEA, SAFETEA-LU, STP, CMAQ, MPO, etc.) federal transportation policies have often been invisible, and unaccountable, to the citizens. If transportation policies were more democratically accountable, they could have great potential for community based organizations (CBOs). Transportation touches every aspect of our lives. It connects people to jobs and other opportunities, like schools, recreation, and culture. Households without access to a car must rely upon public transit that has always had to wait in line behind highways to receive federal funds. The federal bias toward highways is a major cause of suburban sprawl. Highways encourage job flight to the suburbs, leaving behind city and inner suburban neighborhoods with high unemployment.

Community involvement solves inequality best—empirics


Swanstrom and Barrett 7 (Todd, Professor in Community Collaboration at Saint Louis University, and Laura, Public Policy and Executive Director of Transportation Equity Network, “The Road to Jobs: The Flight for Transportation Equity”, Social Policy, 37(3/4), p. 76) DMD
The potential of tapping large transportation projects to provide jobs for disadvantaged communities was demonstrated by the L.A. Aiameda Corridor project in the late 1990s. At $2.2 billion, the Alameda Corridor project was the nation's largest intermodal transportation project and it ran through some of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. CBOs in the path of the project knew that their communities would be disrupted by the construction and they wanted to make sure that they would benefit as well. In September 1997, an alliance of about 40 CBOs - led by Mary Ochs of the Center for Community Change L.A. office, Dennis Rockway of the Legal Aid Foundation and Benctta Johnson of the Greater Bethany Economic Development Corporation — created the Alameda Corridor Jobs Coalition (ACJC), a 501c(3). On March 12, 1998 ACJC announced an historic agreement guaranteeing that at least 30 percent of the work hours in the project would be reserved for residents of the 30 zip codes that bordered the project. Dennis Rockway of the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach called this "the largest local hiring plan of any public works project in the history of the United States." The agreement called for 650 pre-apprenticeship training slots for construction trades. The pre-apprenticeship programs provided short-term training for acquiring the skills necessary to enter an apprenticeship program, such as basic math and how to handle tools.

Grassroots generated policies solve


Swanstrom and Barrett 7 (Todd, Professor in Community Collaboration at Saint Louis University, and Laura, Public Policy and Executive Director of Transportation Equity Network, “The Road to Jobs: The Flight for Transportation Equity”, Social Policy, 37(3/4), p. 76) DMD
Rich Stolz of the Center for Community Change (CCC) had long recognized the potential benefits that federal transportation policy could provide for CBOs. Founded in 1968, CCC provides technical assistance to community groups advocating for urban and rural poor and lobbies at the national level to make government more responsive to the needs of the poor. In 1997, Stolz helped create the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), a coalition of 300 grassroots groups that included Smart Growth America and the Gamaliel Foundation, a diverse network of 1,600 faith congregations. TEN works to make federal transportation law more responsive to the needs of the poor and minorities. TEN has worked to reframe national transportation policy away from an exclusive focus on moving people and goods to viewing transportation policy as having multiple goals, including community revitalization, poverty' reduction, and improving the environment. TEN is an example of the supposedly difficult-to-sustain red-green coalition, a network focused on issues of equity but joined by typically more middle-class groups concerned about the environment and quality of life issues. Federal transportation law is reauthorized, or rewritten, every six years. TEN won a number of victories in the 1998 reauthorization of federal transportation law, called TEA-21 and this success continued in the next battle of reauthorization. Finally, on August 10, 2005, President Bush signed the Safe Accountable Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act — A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA^LU), the nation's new $286 billion transportation law. Like the 1998 law, the new law included several TEN priorities: • Improving the Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) Program by making it a formula grant with a guaranteed $700 million over six years; • Requiring public participation plans to be developed with the involvement of local residents in the metropolitan transportation planning process, and requiring greater financial transparency; and • Setting aside $1 million each year for transportation equitj' research demonstration programs.


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