http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/forum-focuses-on-public-transportation By Steven Sbraccia The topic of public transportation in the Triangle drew a packed audience at the McKimmon Center at North Carolina State University Thursday night. The forum was held to focus attention on improving the area's public transit system. With gas prices hovering around $4 a gallon, people are starting to look for public transportation options. “I definitely think that the interest in transit has risen exponentially as the price of gas has gone up,” Jennifer Lewis with "Wake Up Wake County" said. They are the lead group that helped organize the forum. Bus ridership in the Triangle is reportedly up by about 20 percent. But for those who are turning to Triangle bus routes right now, they quickly realize the system’s limitations. “The point of the forum is to get people thinking about transit and to raise awareness about the recommendations that are out there on the table,” Jennifer Lewis said. In April of this year, the Special Transit Authority Commission made several recommendations for expanding bus service, regional rail service and light rail service. But they are recommendations that will cost money. “There's been a big movement in the Triangle in particular, a lot of interest in public transportation, but when you get down to it, the money hasn't been there,” Shanna Becker with the North Carolina Public Interest Research Group said. There is a bill pending in the General Assembly that would allow local governments to raise funds for public transportation. But not everyone at the forum was sold on spending millions of dollars on public transportation. “It's not feasible for me, as well as for most, almost all Wake county residents to take that type of transportation, it just doesn't work and it doesn't make sense in this region,” Raleigh resident Joey Stansbury said. http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/forum-focuses-on-public-transportation Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:57:52 -0500 http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/more-money-sought-for-public-transit From Staff Reports The cost of gasoline gobbled up economic stimulus checks received by households in North Carolina, according to a group pushing for more funding for public transportation. Since President Bush signed the tax rebates into law Feb. 13, the average household has spent more than $1,500 on gas, the N.C. Public Interest Research Group said in a report Wednesday. The standard stimulus check for a married couple with a child is $1,500. The group sponsored a gathering Wednesday at Moore Square in Raleigh to call for a bigger budget for public transportation as an alternative to high gas prices. Legislation that could go before the U.S. House today would provide $1.7 billion to public transit agencies to reduce fares and expand services. According to the N.C. PIRG, Raleigh would receive $2.3 million over two years, and Durham would receive $2.2 million. Public transportation saved 3.4 billion gallons of oil in 2006, or enough to fuel 5.8 million cars, the N.C. PIRG said. The organization said that households in Triangle neighborhoods with the best access to transit spent an average of $775 a month on transportation, compared with $946 for those with the least access to transit. http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/more-money-sought-for-public-transit Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:27:50 -0500 http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/n_c_-pirg--pay-for-transit By Bob Geary. If you're a typical American family of two adults and one child, you've received your $1,500 "economic stimulus" check from the federal government. And, since Feb. 13, when President Bush authorized that check, you've already spent it all—at the gas pump. So says the N.C. Public Interest Research Group (N.C. PIRG) in a new report called Squandering the Stimulus. The situation's akin to Americans signing over their rebates to big oil companies or oil-producing countries, according to the group. A better use of the money—which would cost a lot less—would be to provide federal aid to public-transit projects that would reduce our dependence on cars and imported oil for the long term, N.C. PIRG attorney Shana Becker says. Here are the facts as Becker sees them: First, the stimulus plan cost taxpayers $168 billion. Second, the average family's gasoline bill has eaten up their $1,500 already. Third, the nation's public transit system produced net gasoline savings of 3.4 billion gallons in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, which at current prices translates to $13.6 billion in household savings for gas. That's to say nothing of time saved by avoiding traffic congestion. Very little of those savings came in North Carolina, however. Here, public transit saved just 1 million gallons of gas, since we have so little transit. (Charlotte started light-rail service in 2007.) Becker notes that transit ridership is surging nationwide as gasoline prices jump. Nonetheless, there's little federal money for new rail and bus lines. N.C. PIRG's solution: Congress should enact the "Saving Energy Through Transportation Act," which would authorize an additional $1.7 billion for public transit expansion. Raleigh and Durham would each receive about $1.1 million a year for two years from the bill, she says. Meanwhile, legislation in the General Assembly that would authorize Triangle counties to tax themselves for new transit projects appeared stalled last week. Identical bills in both houses would allow urban counties to enact a 1/2-cent sales tax dedicated to transit with voters' approval. Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake, the Senate bill's primary sponsor, said proponents agree House action should come first. "Time is running short" in the legislative session, but he thinks—because of the gas crisis—that there's a chance of success this year. "The fact that [the bills have] a referendum requirement makes it more palatable on the Republican side," Stevens said. Wake County Commissioners, Stevens said, want the bills amended to ensure that any such tax levied for Triangle Transit would require voter approval in each of three counties—Wake, Durham and Orange—and not just a winning vote overall. As the bills are written now, Stevens noted, a big "yes" vote in Durham and Orange could override a smaller "no" result in Wake. A Trianglewide 1/2-cent sales tax would generate upward of $80 million a year to match state and federal dollars. The lack of such local matching funds helped doom the Raleigh-to-Durham rail project when it came up for final federal approval in 2006, just as the Bush administration was running out of transit money. http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/n_c_-pirg--pay-for-transit Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:18:19 -0500 http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/transportation-policy-needs-to-catch-up-to-21st-century Transportation was once an engine of progress and an inspiration for the future. Railroads opened the West and automobiles gave mobility to a footloose generation after the Second World War. Nowadays, getting around has become a source of problems more than solutions. Traffic delays now waste an average of 38 hours a year for urban commuters — almost an entire work week and more than twice as much as in 1985. The major source of our nation’s addiction to expensive foreign oil, transportation consumes two out of every three barrels and is the fastest growing source of global warming pollution. The cost of $130-plus-a-barrel oil and crumbling infrastructure are drags on the economy. The once-flush federal transportation trust fund and many of its state counterparts are forecast to run out of money in the next two years. And since the economic stimulus was signed into law in mid-February, a typical family receiving a $1,500 rebate check will have already spent that sum on gas. Since fulfilling President Eisenhower’s 1956 vision of an interstate highway system to link our major cities decades ago, national transportation policy has stumbled on without a clear purpose. Federal transportation spending has become little more than a giant public works program. In the absence of a defined strategy, legislators’ success is often judged by how many federal dollars are brought home for projects in the district, while the nation’s infrastructure has largely deteriorated. To keep our nation moving efficiently, the federal government must ensure dedicated funding and hold states accountable for upkeep of existing roadways. The responsibility is now left almost entirely up to states where it competes for scarce general revenue dollars with popular programs and typically loses out to expensive projects that offer big headlines and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Federal transportation funds have also continued to be distributed through the false assumption that more is better when it comes to roadways. States currently receive highway funds based on three outdated criteria: the previous year’s gasoline consumption, lane-miles of federal highways, and the previous year’s vehicle miles traveled. More driving, in other words, garners more federal dollars. States that do their part to reduce America’s oil dependence and global warming pollution would reduce growth of these same measures, and would lose out on federal dollars. The federal government should be rewarding states and localities that reduce the number of gallons Americans consume and the number of miles they need to drive by placing greater emphasis on public transportation. Light rail, rapid bus transit, commuter rail, high-speed intercity rail and other forms of public transit save oil because they are more energy efficient and encourage development patterns that require less driving. According to a recent report by the NCPIRG Education Fund, public transportation saved 3.4 billion gallons of oil in 2006. This prevented 26 million tons of global warming emissions and translates into $13.6 billion saved at today’s high prices at the pump. Public transportation trips have been growing faster than auto miles or population since 1995. Likewise, 53 percent of Americans tell pollsters that they would like to take more public transportation if it is available near where they live and work. Giving people the transportation choices they want will require Congress to make changes. Since 1956, federal, state and local governments have spent nine times more on highway subsidies than on public transportation. This ratio has improved, but not fast enough. In fact, President Bush’s proposed 2009 budget would take us back in time by cutting federal transit money by $200 million and diverting $3.2 billion from the federal transit account to highways. Such cuts would move the country in exactly the wrong direction. Congress will have a golden opportunity when the current transportation authorization bill expires next year. Public leaders must recognize that our transportation problems stem from a lack of purpose and must rewrite transportation policy to address contemporary problems of rapidly aging infrastructure, urban congestion, oil dependence and an overheating planet. Instead of simply “reauthorizing” the existing transportation act with higher spending levels, Congress must reinvent how it funds transportation. http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/transportation-policy-needs-to-catch-up-to-21st-century Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:41:01 -0500 http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/federal-state-and-local-leaders-cite-new-report TRIANGLE, N.C. - Public Transit received a boost as Congressman David Price, Congressman Brad Miller and other supporters held an event at the historic Seaboard Train Station calling for more public transit options in the Triangle, citing a major new report on oil savings and other benefits from public transportation across the country. The NC Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG) report, A Better Way to Go: Meeting America’s 21st Century Transportation Challenges with Modern Public Transit, examines the challenges faced by America’s transportation system and the benefits of existing rail and bus projects in Triangle and other areas of the state. According to the report, public transit in the Triangle—including the Capital Area Transit, Triangle Transit Authority, Durham Area Transit, and NCSU -- saved 467,950 gallons of oil. Around the country transit saves 3.4 billion gallons of oil each year, prevents 541 million hours of traffic delay and reduces global warming pollution by 26 million tons. Additional data presented at the press conference estimated that Raleigh-Durham commuters collectively spent 1500 percent more hours wasted in traffic in 2005 than in 1982. Demand for public transportation is booming nationally, with transit trips far outpacing the growth of auto miles or population since 1995. About NCPIRG: NCPIRG is members of a new transportation coalition, NC Transportation Reform and Modernization that represents over one million North Carolinians. NC TRAM was formed to promote a transportation system for the 21st century. In addition to urging more investment in public transit, they are calling upon lawmakers to require the Department of Transportation to use objective criteria for project prioritization, and to link land use to transit planning. Another member of the group, NC Justice’s Budget and Tax Center, released a report on the state’s transportation spending two weeks ago. According to the report, the Department of Transportation allots about 3 percent of its funds for public transit spending. Slightly more than 1 percent of the transportation funds that the state receives from the federal government are awarded for public transit. www.ncpirg.org http://www.ncpirg.org/in-the-news/transportation-solutions/transportation-solutions-in-the-news/federal-state-and-local-leaders-cite-new-report Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:03:18 -0500