Nations Mayors Want More Investment in Metro Areas

[Jumpinjack]

 (Washington, D.C.) â€" The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) today released a 176-city survey focusing on local transportation infrastructure investments at the National Press Club. 

America’s Mayors Say No More Bridges To Nowhere: Oppose Gas Tax Unless More Is Invested in Metro Areas to Rebuild Roads and Bridges and Expand Transit


Atlanta (GA) Mayor Kasim Reed, USCM Transportation Committee Chair, delivered the survey findings.  Given the economic problems facing the nation, mayors believe it is more important than ever that federal transportation priorities be targeted to metropolitan areas -- home to two-thirds of U.S. residents.

“As the federal government sets priorities for long-term spending and deficit reduction, future transportation infrastructure investments should focus spending on pressing metropolitan transportation infrastructure needs as opposed to low-priority highway expansion projects such as the infamous Bridge to Nowhere,” said Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. 

“The long-term productivity of transportation infrastructure spending is greater when it is invested where economic growth will occur, which is in the metropolitan areas, “ said Reed. 

Among the major findings of the United States Conference of Mayors Metropolitan Transportation Infrastructure survey (to read entire survey, go to usmayors.org/transportationsurvey <http://usmayors.org/transportationsurvey>  <http://usmayors.org/transportationsurvey> ):
·   Ninety-eight percent of the mayors point to investment in affordable, reliable transportation as an important part of their cities’ economic recovery and growth.

·   Ninety-three percent of the mayors urge reforms in federal transportation programs to allow cities and their metropolitan areas to receive a greater share of federal funds directly.

·   Absent a greater share of funding directly to cities and metropolitan areas, only seven percent of the mayors indicate support to increase the federal gas tax.1

·   Ninety-six percent of the mayors believe that the federal government should increase spending on transportation infrastructure to reverse decades of underinvestment in cities, with strong majorities indicating support to increase the federal gas tax to improve transportation infrastructure, if a greater share of the funding were invested in local road and bridge infrastructure (89%), and public transit (65%).

·   Seventy-five percent of the mayors indicate support to increase the federal gas tax if a greater share of the funding were invested in bicycle and pedestrian projects.

·   Eighty percent of the mayors indicate that highway expansion should be a low priority.

·   Seventy-five percent of the mayors say a national infrastructure bank or expanded availability of federal financing tools such as Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) or Build America Bonds would accelerate or increase the number of transportation projects that could be implemented.
1
The United States Conference of Mayors policy does not support an increase in the federal gas tax without reforms and programs in the reauthorization of the federal surface transportation law that are metropolitan-focused, more energy- efficient, and more environmentally sustainable.

In the United States, metropolitan areas account for 86 percent of employment, 90 percent of wage income, and over the next 20 years, 94 percent of the nation’s economic growth, but they are burdened with the nation’s worst traffic jams, its oldest roads and bridges, and transit systems at capacity.   Simply put, these areas are receiving significantly less in federal transportation investments than would reflect their role and importance to the nation’s economy.

Tom Cochran, USCM CEO and Executive Director underscored this point.  “The largest metropolitan areas account for 87 percent of the nation’s traffic.  The three most congested areas - Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago - account for 27 percent of that traffic.   Our metropolitan areas rank high among world economies, but they are saddled with bus and rail systems at capacity and aging roads and bridges that will undermine their ability to meet the nation’s future economic output. Given these factors, metropolitan areas should be at the center of federal transportation infrastructure investment.  They are the drivers of the 21st century United States economy.”

Cochran went on to say, “This survey confirms what mayors have been saying for years: through a new direct partnership with mayors, the federal government should make tomorrow’s transportation infrastructure more metropolitan-focused, more energy-efficient, and more environmentally sustainable.” 
The United States Conference of Mayors is pleased to be working with the Obama Administration and Congress in helping to shape a federal surface transportation law that will rebuild transportation infrastructure in metropolitan areas, reduce traffic congestion, create jobs, and ensure that cities and their metropolitan economies across the United States, and, in turn, the nation’s economy, emerge from the recession. 

The President and CEO of Parsons Brinkerhoff, which sponsored the survey, spoke to the global benefit of increased infrastructure investments in this country.
“While the United States has been disinvesting in transportation infrastructure, we see other countries taking a cue from our history by making significant investments in transportation,” said Parsons Brinckerhoff President and CEO George J. Pierson. “Today, we are investing approximately two percent of our GDP on infrastructure; Europe and China are investing approximately five percent and nine percent, respectively.   Growth in India, China, Brazil and other surging economies is being fueled in part by investment in transit systems, roads, airports and other infrastructure.  Thousands of miles of high-speed rail systems are being built in Europe and Asia, connecting population and economic centers.”   

“When mayors in the United States speak to their need to improve the quality of roads and transit systems in their cities, they are responding to a public need in a way that will arm their cities for success in global competition,” concluded Pierson.

[tufsu1]

those darn consultants...always so self-serving!

[Jumpinjack]

True, but aren't you proud that the mayors get it while sadly the legislators don't.

[fsujax]

I wonder if our mayor participated?

[Dog Walker]

I wonder if our mayor participated?

ROFLMAO!!!  Good one, FSU!

[tufsu1]

True, but aren't you proud that the mayors get it while sadly the legislators don't.

there is an argument for requiring state legislators to have first been a Mayor or sat on a local government council/commission....and that same argument could be used at the national level, where they would first have had to be a governor or state legislator.

[Jumpinjack]

What's the chances that our newly elected mayor would join the conference of mayors? Any guesses?

[FayeforCure]

I wonder if our mayor participated?

A Jacksonville Republican mayor who would stand up to Republican cuts in transit funding or any other cuts in federal funding? Not even possible.

Yet there are Republican mayors in Oklahoma City and Mesa, Ariz. that have been enraged at current Republican national policies:

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter explained.

He described the House bill as “un-American” and said it is aimed at hurting the poor, elderly and children.

“You cannot run a country while attacking its own people,” he said.

The conference is a nonpartisan organization, and several Republican mayors stood up to criticize the GOP spending bill.



Mick Cornett, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City and head of the Republican Mayors Association, called the House hypocritical for making the cuts, and said that it is the wrong way to balance the budget

Scott Smith, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., called the bill’s cuts “an atrocity.” He said it will merely shift the costs of combating social ills such as hungry and homeless children to overburdened local governments.

He said the program is highly transparent and that residents will see the effects of the cuts quickly as their cities deteriorate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/appropriations/145943-angry-mayors-launch-effort-against-house-spending-cuts-

Instead of less federal help for metropolitan areas, we need more federal investment in infrastructure and mayors agree that an increase in the federal gas tax would be good if more money would be invested in metropolitan areas rather than highways:

Mayors Rebel Against State-Controlled Highway Expansion, Fight For Transit
by Tanya Snyder on May 3, 2011

In the words of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which sponsored the survey:

Metropolitan areas account for 86 percent of employment, 90 percent of wage income, and over the next 20 years, 94 percent of the nation’s economic growth, but they are saddled with the nation’s worst traffic jams, its oldest roads and bridges, and transit systems at capacity. Simply put, these areas are receiving significantly less in federal transportation investments than would reflect their role and importance to the nation’s economy.

With greater control over transportation resources, the mayors made it clear that they would have far different priorities than the states that usually hold the power. Specifically, mayors say they would invest in maintaining â€" not expanding â€" roads and bridges. Eighty percent say highway expansion should be a low priority. Mayor Reed said:

The reverse is true for public transit. Mayors identified the need to grow public transit capacity and operating assistance to meet the escalating demand for more public transit, rather than just simply maintaining what is already in place, and we know the sustainable attributes of public transit as well.

Three-fifths of mayors also said the lack of funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects was a problem. “These aren’t gimmicks anymore,” said Reed. “They’re part of a having a high quality of life in the cities where we live.”

The mayors also made clear they wouldn’t favor a gas tax increase if transportation funds were allocated in the traditional way, but that 70 percent would support it if a share of the funding were allocated directly to local governments, and with more money going to bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

Mayor Reed said the disconnect between state and local governments is essentially a tension between the needs of rural and urban areas. “There is a dominance of the rural parts of the state that I think creates a bit of imbalance from the economic reality,” he said. He called it “old-school politics.”

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/05/03/mayors-rebel-against-state-mandated-highway-expansion-fight-for-transit/