A Green New Deal for Transportation

A GREEN NEW DEAL FOR TRANSPORTATION

Baktiar Choudhury Emily Kennedy Maxim Yulis Natalie Mullins Patrick Teese Trevor Pennypacker May 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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INTRODUCTION - THE NEED FOR A SYSTEMS APPROACH

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FOUR MAIN PROBLEMS

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PROBLEM ONE: OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE ARE INSUFFICENT

PROBLEM TWO: INCENTIVES ARE IN THE WRONG PLACES

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PROBLEM THREE: URBAN DESIGN FAVORS CARS

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PROBLEM FOUR: URBAN SOLUTIONS DON’T WORK FOR RURAL AMERICA

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THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY

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POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

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CONCLUSION

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ENDNOTES

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The transportation sector is the single largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States, contributing to 29% of the nation’s total emissions.1 The majority of these emissions come from driving. The reality is, we have become far too reliant on cars. We need a Green New The Federal Highway Act of 1956 led to the growth of the highway system and, by linking gas taxes to the Federal Highway Trust Fund, allowed the government to subsidize highways. It also allowed state and federal highway departments to purposefully choose to build roads through African American neighborhoods, using language such as blight removal, as ways to justify the action.2 This Act guaranteed a stream of money, providing 90% of the funding used to build the interstate highway system. Meanwhile, as highway construction benefitted from public funds, regional transit systems and railroads remained mostly reliant on private investment.

To this day, while Congress continues funneling 80% of federal transportation funds into highways, only 20% is allocated for public transit.3 This imbalance continues to tilt policymakers and politicians toward favoring automobiles as the dominant mode of transit over multi-passenger transportation systems. It also has encouraged land use planning and urban design practices to give preference to cars. In order to shift this narrative, it is necessary to fund alternative modes of travel by subsidizing public transit, instead of cars, and by investing in Complete Streets projects that ensure safe and connected bicycle and pedestrian networks.

Imagine cities where parking spaces were scarce but rapid transit buses were abundant. Today, parking is free for 99% of all automobile trips in the U.S. because cities have been planned around minimum parking requirements.4 The endless quest to satisfy peak demand for free parking uses precious city space. The result is available and low-cost parking but great societal cost. As 4

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progressive parking expert Donald Shoup argues, as long as we continue to make minimum parking requirements a condition of development, we subordinate almost every other function of our cities to the need for free parking and cars as transit.

A Green New Deal for Transportation would ensure that people have safe and convenient ways to reach their destinations using shorter trips, shared trips and alternative modes of transportation.

How do we get there? For starters, we already have the money. It’s just being spent in the wrong places. The average American consumer spent $8,427 a year on automobile transportation in 2016, they spent just $1.10 in annual tax dollars to build new or expanded quality bus lines.5 It’s time to shift our priorities.

It will take more than money. It will also take good planning. Cross-jurisdictional coordination will be vital to ensuring every community has access to reliable public transit. In addition, while federal transit policy revolves around building and expanding projects -- adding transit lines and roads -- there has been little done to improve transit effectiveness, such as frequency and speed of service. Those conditions are necessary to making public transit more attractive to potential riders. During the Obama Administration, $48.1 billion was allocated for roads and transit following the 2009 recession.6 However, almost all of those funds were given to new investments, instead of improving maintenance and operations.

While fossil fuel-based transportation is a major contributor to climate change, automobile-dependent cities also struggle with air pollution, degraded infrastructure and flooding, extreme heat and intense winter storms. To reduce transportation’s carbon footprint, it is essential we stop the continuous expansion 5

new highways, roads, and more lanes instead of public transit, biking, and walking, we undermine economic, equity and climate goals.

The answer is to transition to a more environmentally sustainable and socially just transportation system. The United States must implement a Green New Deal for Transportation and that includes addressing the following problems in our public transportation system: 1. Operations and maintenance is insufficient.

If we want to encourage more shared modes and fewer automobiles, the government should invest more in public transit reliability and less on automobile infrastructure.

This means recasting the Highway Trust Fund to devote more public dollars to transit opertions improvements than to the creation of new highways and roads.

2. Incentives are in the wrong places. The reason our country is so reliant on car ownership is because we have overly subsidized personal vehicles and underfunded public transit options.

3. Urban development favors cars. Half of all trips made are three miles or less. Fewer than 2% of those trips are made by bicycle, while 72% of them are driven. Cycling can easily replace short automobile trips, but installing protected bicycle lanes is necessary to ensure people feel safe while cycling.

4. Urban solutions don’t work for rural America. Between an over-reliance on private vehicles and a lack of public transit alternatives, residents of sparsely populated and geographically spread out regions face differing transportation problems than those of urban dwellers.

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In order to make this transition possible, we have to recognize what is holding us back. The problems in our transportation network that have inhibited a clean and just system center around four main issues -- current public transit is not reliable or frequent, transportation subsidies are in the wrong place, urban design has been centered around roads, and urban solutions do not work for rural settings. With targeted and specific policy, we can change this.

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THE NEED FOR A SYSTEMS APPROACH Not only does a Green New Deal for Transportation seek to meet net zero greenhouse gas emissions, but it also aspires to tackle all forms of climate justice. A Green New Deal for Transportation provides a platform for economic, housing, and land justice. In order to accomplish the goals of the Green New Deal, we have to look towards the future with a systems approach.

Communities projected to be most affected by the effects of rising temperatures and sea levels and industrial pollution are disproportionately people of color.7 Therefore, a Green New Deal must focus on narrowing infrastructural inequalities, such as those in the transport and housing sectors, in order to begin tackling the problem at a national level.

Many cities across the United States, including Seattle, Kansas City, Boston, and more have experimented with the idea of making public transportation fare-free for low-income riders.8 In light of rising fare prices in several cities, yet marginal improvements in service, increasing subsidies to public transit is needed now more than ever.

As we consider improvements to our public transit system, we must acknowledge that affordable housing is directly correlated to the accessibility of public transit.

To undo the transgenerational effects of

redlining and gentrification in America’s big cities, an overhauling of public transportation must be coupled with significant investment in the nation’s crippled public housing system. Land and property costs near highly-connected transit zones are significantly higher than those in the suburbs or countryside. Arlington, Virginia provides an example as the city’s densest affordable housing complexes are nowhere near the metro corridors.9 Moreover, even those who live in the metro areas don’t necessarily spend less on transportation -- in fact, some report paying more.10 This provides one possible explanation for why transit access is unlikely to persuade people to abandon automobiles as a mode of transport.

Therefore, in order to connect public transportation to housing, there need to be connected, dense neighborhoods which are affordable to all levels of the income ladder.

By reserving specific land plots near public transit hotspots for affordable housing units, the feasibility of living in some of the nation’s densest and most expensive metropolitan areas becomes more likely.

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According to traditional measures of affordability, the recommended cost of housing is less than 30% of average household income.11 With this logic, the median household in America can afford to live in over half of the country’s neighborhoods. However, this fails to take into account transportation costs which account for a household’s second-largest expenditure.

In addition to housing, land reform and public transportation are deeply connected. Public land is required in order to build on and expand America’s existing public transportation network. Historically, public land has also played an important role in the construction of highways and the nation’s interstate system, much of which was identified as blighted land, displacing many African American communities. As we think to the future for a greener and more equitable form of transportation, it may be time for highways with minimal traffic to be demolished entirely or transformed into grounds for public housing or wildlife sanctuaries. Replacing parts of the freeway infrastructure built in the 1950s may seem like a towering feat, however, the idea is not outlandish. In Helsinki, for example, the municipal government currently has plans to tear up some of the city’s highways and have discussed potentially using the land to construct public housing units.12 As traffic lanes have been added over the years, seeking to remedy an endless congestion problem, many highways are in fact, under capacity.13 As we look to transition our economy into one in which a Green New Deal is feasible and functional,

it is encouraging to realize that technology is on our side. The technology exists to equip an entire nation with an electric fleet of cars, buses, and other modes of transport. What we need now is the political will. Instead of subsidizing the existing fossil fuel industry complex, green industries should gain priority. Public transportation networks, such as Philadelphia’s Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), have already begun to make meaningful, yet limited, investments in green energy.14 Last year, SEPTA invested in two solar farms and will effectively become the first major transportation agency in the United States to power up its rail systems with solar energy. Only a national framework for a Green New Deal will accelerate such initiatives and replicate them state by state. A more fractured approach may take place without national leadership, resulting in geographical disparities across the nation, allowing the wealthiest regions to make the most meaningful reforms.

Finally, in order to guarantee a Green New Deal for Transportation is equitable and inclusive to all, we must ensure a just transition away from our current system. Transit agencies across the country are strapped for resources due to the lack of investment in their services and therefore face operator shortages, affecting their ability to deliver scheduled service. In order to meet an increased demand for transit reflected in more frequent service, agencies will need to hire thousands of new operators. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Americans will need to be transitioned out of employment 9

in the automobile industry. This means establishing job training and apprenticeship programs for transit operator, mechanic, and construction positions so that agencies will be better able to handle these added expenses and influx of new workers. It also means allowing Americans to replace less fuel-efficient vehicles with electric vehicles, especially for rural residents. In order to achieve climate justice through a Green New Deal for Transportation, economic, social, and land justice must be taken into account and in order for a Green New Deal for Transportation to be sustainable for generations to come, it must seriously consider class, geography, and ability in order to generate outcomes consistent with a just transition.

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FOUR MAIN PROBLEMS IN TRANSPORTATION

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OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE ARE INSUFFICENT Across the United States, public transportation has focused on the creation of new infrastructure as opposed to improvements, maintenance and the frequency, reliability and speed of transit service. The sorry state of public transit in the United States has worsened social mobility and further exacerbated class divides. Public transportation has been stigmatized and under funded ensuring that service is not fast, efficient, or frequent.

How can we envision a Green New Deal for Transportation that makes public transit a more reliable, efficient, and fast form of transportation?

Frequency and passenger perception of public transport unreliability pose the biggest barriers to public transportation ridership. As renowned transit consultant, Jarret Walker says, “frequency is freedom.”

The difference between transit that runs every thirty minutes and one that runs every 10 minutes means the difference between planning your life around a transit schedule and one in which you can make a spontaneous decision to leave. According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, the strongest influence on transit use reduction comes from experiencing delays

due to operational problems.15 Late buses, overcrowded vehicles, and missed transfers count as unreliable in the eyes of transit users. Even infrequently scheduled service may be perceived as unreliable by passengers, even if vehicles are operating on time, simply due to the large gaps between departures and passengers’ lack of knowledge of the scheduled frequency. 16 Infrequent transit hurts the most vulnerable in society and reduces the opportunity for social mobility.

When we discuss the implications of a Green New Deal for Transportation, we must consider a systems-thinking approach and that means thinking about the importance of equity in how our public transportation system is set up. According to Harvard’s Equality of Opportunity project, a long commute is one of the biggest barriers to escaping poverty.17 When many public agencies that deliver transit service are run by board members who never use their own service, the hypocrisy is not lost on anyone, that outdated stereotypes and antiquated ideas take precedence when planning for transportation in the United States. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of the poorest large cities in the country and a majority minority city, falls victim to this trend as well, with only one board member 12

commuting to work on Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA’s) expansive public transit network. 18 In addition to frequency, the speed of service impacts the perception of transit reliability for users. According to the 2019 report released by INRIX Inc. a transportation analytics company based in Washington, Philadelphia had the thirdworst congestion among American cities after Boston and Chicago.19 On average, Philadelphia drivers spent 112 hours in congestion last year at a cost of $1,568 per person. This congestion has impacted bus speeds as well. In Philadelphia, bus speeds fell every year from 2014 to 2017, and most buses travel below 12 mph.20 In theory, transit agencies plan bus schedules to account for delays due to congestion or other, however according to Simon Berrebi, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech and expert on bus bunching, said he frequently sees bus routes that are so unreliable that some days they run the route in 30 minutes and on bad days, take 80 minutes.21 Transit delays are also not uncommon on subways and trolleys when old train cars break down, leading to back-ups on other parts of the line causing delays. Average vehicle speeds have decreased at most transit agencies since 2012, according to the National Transit Database.22 Rather than focusing on reliability, public transit in the United States has mostly been concerned with building and expansion of transit rather than maintenance of the current service.23 Following the 2008 economic recession, the Obama Administration approved the Recovery Act

which included $48.1 billion for roads and transit.24 While this seemed promising, the problem was that those funds were dedicated almost exclusively to new investments instead of supplementing existing operating funds. During this time, even while states and cities were laying train tracks and buying new buses, they were also being forced to cut bus routes and raise subway fares. Overall, American cities added more than 1,200 miles of new and expanded transit lines between 2010 and 2019, spending more than $47 billion in 2019 dollars to do so.25 A total of about $3.6 billion was spent on new bus expansion projects over this period meaning the average American contributed just $1.10 in tax dollars annually to the construction of facilities for new or expanded quality bus lines, out of a total of about $14.50 every year on transportation expansion overall.26 Ending the continuous expansion of the roadway network is an essential element of any effort to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation, slow the growth in driving, and incentivize public transport. Instead of focusing on expansion, Philadelphia and the United States should focus on repair and maintenance projects to improve the frequency, speed and reliability of transit. In its most recent “conditions and performance report,� the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates a national transit maintenance backlog of approximately $99 billion worth of projects in need of repair.27

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A November 2019 national poll found strong support for prioritizing repair road projects before building new roads, with only 3% separating Democrats, Independents and Republicans—and 61% supporting an outright moratorium on new roads for 10 years as a means of reorienting toward repairing infrastructure.28

allocated. The U.S. has funded transportation based on the principle that the user pays for the infrastructure through a fee, the gas tax, which has funded the Highway Trust Fund since 1956. The “80-20 split” in transportation has continued to be the norm, with highways receiving 80% of the funds and transit receiving 20% since 1982

That same poll also found that voters from across the political spectrum and from urban, suburban, and rural areas overwhelmingly believe more transit would benefit the country.29

when Congress struck a deal to raise the gas tax, but 1 cent of the 5 cent increase would be dedicated to transit, with the remaining spent on highways.30 However, our transportation dollars are no longer based on a user fee paid by drivers, yet this funding divide still persists. Even with Obama’s Recovery Act in 2009, deficit funding came from the general fund, not from gas tax fees

Maintenance has been relegated to last priority since antiquated rules have dominated how transit funding gets

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and still, most of that funding was generated towards roads.

As we face a pandemic which threatens the financial viability of each city’s transit agency, the crisis also highlights the greater need to invest in public transit. Each city and state differs in how it’s transit agency receives the bulk of its budget. In Illinois, transit agencies rely on sales taxes that will dwindle as housing spending decreases. Portland, Oregan payroll taxes fund transit, which will decline as unemployment rises. In San Francisco, the transit system gets almost twice as much revenue in parking fees and

fines as it does from transit fares.31 As the economy lags and transit agencies struggle to cover the costs, the role of the government plays an even greater role. The recently passed $2 trillion CARES Act which includes $25 billion in direct, emergency assistance for transit is more than double what the federal government usually spends on transit in a year.32 This offers up an opportunity to

2016 Funding Sources for Transit Operations

invest in maintenance and operations using typically limited federal funds, in order to improve frequency, speed of service and reliability.

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By investing in maintenance, current public transit networks can improve, increasing ridership loyalty through a renewed, better service and create new jobs in a time of high unemployment. While expansion projects require more funding, maintenance creates 16% more jobs per dollar compared to roadway expansion.33 If the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA, commonly known as “the stimulus�) of 2009 is any model, each dollar spent on public transportation produced 70% more job hours than an ARRA dollar spent on highways.34 According to the American Public Transit Association (APTA), the necessary public investments in transit systems could support millions of construction and operations jobs and catalyze nearly $1 trillion in economic activity during the next 20 years.35

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COVID-19 and Philadelphia Transportation According to 2018 Census data, an estimated 2.8 million American workers classified as essential during the COVID-19 emergency, commute to work on transit — about 36% of all transit commuters.36 After many online petitions and calls to local senators and representatives, congressional leaders and the White House agreed to a $2 trillion COVID-19 economic stabilization plan that includes $25 billion in emergency direct assistance to transit agencies, at a time when agencies’ revenue is plummeting. The plan also includes more than $1 billion for passenger rail. There are now relief funds for operating costs to maintain service, fill gaps of lost revenue due to the coronavirus emergency, as well as the purchase of personal protective equipment, and funding for the administrative leave of operations personnel due to loss of service.

One week following Philadelphia’s “shelter in place” order, SEPTA faced an unprecedented 64% systemwide dip in ridership on transit, an 88% ridership loss on Regional Rail, and a projected $150 million shortfall for the fiscal year from diminished farebox collections.37 In order to prevent a system-wide financial disaster, the transit agency enacted quick cost-cutting measures that included executive pay cuts, a hiring freeze and elimination of overtime. The worry that remains is that after this crisis subsides, transit agencies will be expected to provide the same level of service as they did before the crisis, but ridership may take longer to come back as the health stigma associated with being in close proximity to others on transit continues.

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INCENTIVES ARE IN THE WRONG PLACES Even if public transportation were to be made cheap, reliable, attractive, and safe across the board, the problem would not be solved. Improving public transportation systems is a very important factor in tipping the balance away from private use of automobiles and towards public use of large-volume vehicles, but is actually just one factor in a sea of misaligned incentives.

People are pushed towards using private automobiles by a slew of incentives at all levels, which need to be exposed and removed. How can we envision a Green New Deal for Transportation that incentivizes more sustainable mechanisms for future transportation?

mandating that each building be accessible via public transportation. The reality is it wasn’t until 2017 that every single major city in the United States mandated a minimum number of parking spaces per building, in some respect, with Buffalo, New York being the first to remove this policy.39 The total number of parking spaces needed in an entire city to satisfy these requirements are staggering, and necessitate blocking off a huge proportion of land to be used only for parking. This forces the city to sprawl outwards, further exaggerating the need to drive. Put concisely, by Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, “minimum parking requirements act like a fertility drug for cars.�40

Minimum parking requirements force cities to sprawl. They exist almost ubiquitously across the urban American landscape. Cities mandate that each building must have a minimum number of parking spaces, usually dependent on the purpose of the building.

Philadelphia for example, mandates that educational facilities must have one parking space per 1,000 square feet, hospitals must have one parking space for every four beds, and religious assemblies must have one parking space for every ten seats.38 Unsurprisingly, there is a lack of a parallel

Roads are a socialized risk that benefit drivers. A less direct but just as potent way in which citizens are incentivized to use private vehicles is the current way in which infrastructure is funded. With the exception of occasional tolls, roads and highways are largely free to use. Their construction and maintenance are paid for with tax dollars and are mostly independent of use. The federal gasoline tax attempts to remedy this problem, but less than half of road expenditures are covered using revenues from this tax.41 Subsidizing the use of roads and highways lowers the cost of owning and 18

operating a car, incentivizing people to use private cars instead of utilizing public transportation.

Fossil fuels are subsidized to the extreme. Well exploration, drilling costs, and many other expensive practices necessary to producing oil and gas are subsidized by national governments. It is impossible to exactly quantify the sum of the subsidies, but conservative estimates say that the U.S. subsidizes fossil fuels by $20 billion per year,42 while the IMF estimates the value to be closer to $650 billion for the United States, and over $5 trillion globally.43 This results in the price of fossil fuels being much lower than the actual cost, encouraging the use of fossil fuel-emitting cars. This is partially offset by a tax on “gas guzzlers” introduced in 1980, but even this tax has glaring loopholes, such as an exemption for all light trucks, vans, and SUVs despite their widespread use as passenger vehicles.44 Still, this tax comes nowhere close to offsetting the subsidies in favor of fossil fuels, bringing in a paltry $42 million annually.45 Furthermore, due to extreme lobbying on the part of the oil and gas industry, companies like Tesla are banned from opening dealerships in sixteen states and restricted in another nine.46 Subsidies and other forms of incentives are powerful tools. The previous examples show how misaligned incentives exacerbate the issue, but well-placed incentives can also do a lot of good.

Congestion charges discourage driving and fund public transportation. A prime example is in the city of London. In 2003, the city introduced a congestion charge, requiring

a fee of £5 per day to drive in downtown London -- which has since increased to the current value of £11.50. The goal of the policy was to alleviate high levels of traffic in the city, but it also functioned as an effective incentive to encourage public transportation over private vehicles. In the decade following its implementation, the number of private cars driven into downtown London fell by over 30%.47 London also added 300 buses to their public fleet when the policy was introduced, and in the first year alone 29,000 additional bus passengers entered downtown London during the morning peak period.48 Another alternative to congestion charging is road space rationing in which driving through certain areas is restricted by license plate on a day-by-day basis. Mexico City, Mexico is an example of a place where this has been successful in discouraging driving on certain days as a way to curb air pollution.49 In addition to tactics to discourage driving, public transit should be further subsidized. Lowering the cost of public buses and trains encourages people to use them. Some cities already do this in small ways. Philadelphia for example, allows senior citizens to ride all public transit routes for free. Few cities, both nationally and globally, have introduced free public transit, although this trend is becoming more popular.50 Luxembourg recently became the first country to abolish fares for all forms of public transportation.51 While the country is small, with a population of only 600,000, this could set a precedent for a much larger global movement. As ideas such as these gain traction, the incentive to own and drive a car seems less enticing.

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To fully utilize clean energy sources, electric vehicles (EVs) should be further subsidized.

Some subsidies do exist towards electric vehicles already. The U.S. government subsidizes the first 200,000 EVs that each automaker sells with a $7,500 consumer tax break, and after that, subsidizes in a decreasing fashion.52 However, a Strata report found that out of the billions of dollars of EV subsidies handed out by the federal government, the majority was given to individuals of high incomes.53 To the consumers that cannot afford an EV, the subsidy is usually not enough. Subsidies for EVs need to be expanded to make them more accessible, especially to people living in rural environments that do not have access to densely-concentrated public transportation.

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COVID-19 and Density With the world mired in the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to address a frequent criticism of high-density housing and transportation -- as density increases, the transmission of any infectious disease becomes likelier and accelerant. Still, as ridership has declined rapidly around the world, a few cities provide insight into what an effective remedy may look like in the near future.

In Taipei, commuters are screened with infrared sensors prior to boarding the metro in order to measure body temperature.

Likewise, South Korea has cleaners desanitizing subways and trains on a daily basis with antiseptic solutions while wearing protective gear.54 Other technologies are also in the works, but more simple solutions may be implemented in the event of a future pandemic. It is estimated that nearly 37% of the American workforce is capable of telecommuting.55 This would dramatically lower traffic on public transport systems and would allow for proper social distancing inside train cars and buses. Companies such as Facebook and Google, have already allowed their employees to remain working from home for the rest of this year, but such a policy clearly benefits a small sliver of the working population. Combining a technological and social response will be necessary to combat overcrowding on public transportation while offering solutions that don’t require dismantling or contributing to the existing stigma plaguing modes of public transport. A Green New Deal for public transportation cannot ignore the necessity of making public health a priority, especially since COVID-19 may not be our last pandemic.

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URBAN DEVELOPMENT FAVORS CARS The physical environments of cities throughout the country have been developed with cars in mind. Our existing mobility infrastructure disregards traffic safety, walkability, bikeability, density, and environmental sustainability in service of personal vehicles, and the dominance of the automobile will continue to disconnect streetscapes from a future of community-focused and environmentally sustainable transportation networks. Small-scale design decisions play an outsized role in affecting how travelers can experience a city; many facets of urban life are impaired by the omnipresence of cars and their dedicated infrastructure. Until alternative modes of transportation such as walking, biking, and public transit can be supported by human-scale and community-scale physical changes to cityscapes, communities and natural environments will continue to suffer.

How can we implement comprehensive and inclusive planning and design policy measures at the scale necessary to affect these physical changes in cities across the country?

Streets and street systems are designed for cars. For decades, transportation planners have emphasized the importance of “level of service,” i.e. a road’s capacity for vehicle travel. Their fixation on maximizing this capacity has created new travel lanes to accomodate more cars and has widened existing lanes to accommodate higher travel speeds.56 Furthermore, the very management of these transportation systems prioritizes cars: software is often optimized for car travel and seeks to reduce car traffic delays without considering pedestrian travel.57 When vehicles are not moving, however—which for cars, according to Donald Shoup’s calculations, is estimated to be about 95% of the time—they have to be parked somewhere.58 As noted above, parking requirements tied to development and construction have perpetuated a cycle of car usage, and so too has curbside parking under the domain of municipal governments. Philadelphia alone has over two million parking spaces, leaving about 1.25 parking spaces for every resident of the city across all ages.59 With the majority of the right-of-way dedicated to cars, there isn’t much space left for other road users.

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Designing for cars risks the health and safety of all types of road users—but especially for the most vulnerable travelers. After the 1993 repeal of the U.S. federal government’s National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL), nearly all states increased their own maximum speed limits, which led to tens of thousands more traffic fatalities. Each 5-mile-per-hour speed limit increase was responsible, on average, for an 8.5% increase in interstate or freeway fatalities and a 2.8% increase on other roads.60 A researcher with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concluded that in 2017 alone, 5.2% of traffic deaths—or a total of 1,934 deaths—could have been avoided had the national limit remained at its 1993 level of 65 mph.61 Issues of traffic safety are felt disproportionately by bicyclists and pedestrians, who planners and policy-makers have failed to prioritize.

The per-trip likelihood of a pedestrian being killed in a car crash is 50% greater than that of a car occupant, a massive inequality between modes of transportation.62 Between 2005 and 2014, over 46,000 people were struck and killed by cars,63 and just in 2017, that number was around 6,000—or roughly one life lost every 88 minutes—according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.64 Faster car traffic makes sharing the right-of-way more dangerous, but even on less busy roads with lower average speeds, other dangers pose threats to vulnerable road users. Curbside parking severely limits the line of sight for drivers looking to proceed through an intersection as well as for pedestrians looking to cross, and protected areas like bike lanes or extended curbs are often subordinate to the needs of cars. Dedicated bike lanes— particularly protected lanes that offer riders an extra buffer from car traffic—remain few

and far between in many American cities,65 and even when they do exist, they are frequently blocked by distracted pedestrians, mounds of snow cleared from adjacent car lanes, parked cars, and idling delivery vehicles. Public infrastructure should be sufficient enough to ensure everyone’s safe and comfortable travel.

Problems are magnified for communities of color, for whom traffic safety is a much greater threat. Pedestrians of color face more dangerous conditions than do their white counterparts. In Louisiana, for example, a person of color is nine times more likely to be killed walking than is a white person.66 Such racial disparities affect drivers as well, giving rise to the term “driving while black,” which refers to black drivers’ increased chances of being pulled over by police compared to white drivers. In 2018, black drivers in Missouri were 76% more likely to be pulled over than expected given their proportion of the state’s population and were 91% more likely to be pulled over than a white driver.67 In several states, these traffic stops are more likely to lead to being searched, ticketed, and arrested for black Americans.68 Because in the United States black, Hispanic, and Native Americans/ Alaskans are considerably more likely to be killed by police force, such traffic stops become life-and-death situations.

Communities are beleaguered with low walkability and low density.

The poor maintenance and operation of transit networks discourage the public from using them, and the design and planning of physical spaces have kept walking, rolling, and biking dangerous and unappealing. In places like Houston, the construction of a 23

sidewalk can even be denied by that property owner, further disincentivizing walking.69 In a country where car travel is incentivized and prioritized, the development of our cities and towns has progressed with this reality in mind. Zoning regulations and the development projects they support have long avoided considerations of public transit access and walkability, instead intensifying the influence of the automobile and distancing residential communities from commercial areas and places of employment. In 2016, roughly 3 of every 4 Americans traveled to work alone in a personal vehicle, which added approximately 12 million cars to the road.70 When density and mixed-use are not priorities in planning communities, needs and destinations can often only be reached via car.

The environmental and social consequences of these design and planning problems are too serious to ignore. Fossil-fuel based vehicles obviously contribute harmful emissions to global climate patterns, but the infrastructure that supports them also contributes to more local environmental damage. During precipitation events, impermeable surfaces like paved roads, parking lots, and sidewalks all interrupt the flow of stormwater, which mixes with the chemicals and pesticides that have settled on these surfaces before reaching a sewer drain, dirt patch, or waterway. In cities such as Philadelphia, which have combined sewer systems in which the same pipes end up carrying stormwater and household sewage, this type of problem can be especially

problematic. Intense precipitation events can overwhelm the sewer pipes and lead to untreated sewage being released into nearby waterways.71 In one year alone, Philadelphia’s sewers can empty 13 billion gallons of the hazardous mixture into waterways.72 The limited incorporation of permeable soil and planted areas into the design of our cities can overburden these systems, but such an approach also contributes to the higher air temperatures experienced in cities through a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect.73 More developed areas often suffer from a higher average temperature, which is compounded by air pollutants’ greenhouse gas effects. These paved, plantless streetscapes also may simply be uninviting and hot, which further facilitates car dependency. These problems also mostly affect low-income communities and communities of color, which are also the communities least prepared to cope with poor transit access, environmental degradation, and heat waves.

Thoughtful and innovative design solutions can be implemented to prioritize the health of communities and their natural environments. A more inclusive urban planning and design in critical to addressing socioeconomic inequality and environmental degradation. Three important and interrelated ideas are propelling efforts to reclaim communities for all travelers:

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1. Complete Streets are streetscapes “designed and operated to enable safe use and support mobility for all users.”

74 By utilizing a systems approach to mobility that values all road users and all elements of road use more equitably, Complete Streets reshape how people can move within and along their streets. The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) maintains a guide outlining essential considerations and ideas for the physical development of streets. Their catalog of interventions highlights ways to mitigate death and injury, encourage less carbon-intensive travel, and support communities by encouraging walking.75 For example, protected bike lanes will help bicyclists feel safer, keep sidewalks free of fast-moving bikes, and increase drivers’ comfort behind the wheel.76 Curb extensions, which can be combined in different patterns at different points in the street, expand pedestrian space and narrow car travel space for the safety of pedestrians. “Road diets,” or the reduction of through lanes along a stretch of road, are a related tactic that seeks to improve traffic safety and recapture space for alternative infrastructures, such as greenspace for stormwater management.77

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2. Vision Zero is an international movement to reduce traffic deaths through engineering, education, and enforcement. Advocates call for safer roadway management and physical design, information campaigns for driver awareness, and traffic monitoring by police to reduce noncompliance.

Vision Zero represents a shift in the urgency of this activism: community members, policy-makers, and planners “are no longer viewing the U.S. pandemic of traffic deaths and injuries as inevitable ‘accidents,’ but instead as preventable crashes constituting a public health crisis.”78 3. Transit-oriented development (TOD) is an approach to planning and construction that prioritizes transit use and walkability/ bikeability to achieve density.79 TOD projects include mixed-use designs, which concentrate land use for working, shopping, and living all into a small area in order to reduce the need to travel far in the first place. Alongside considerations of transportation are the inclusion of affordable housing, the passage of complementary zoning changes, growth of nearby businesses, and conservation of land through dense development.

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These comprehensive “smart growth� strategies will allow cities to reshape their built environments to prepare for coming challenges. As the effects of climate crisis intensify, so too does the importance of protecting cities’ fragile communities and natural environments. Elements of the above solutions provide cities with the tools necessary to transform existing public infrastructure and ensure that future development is held to standards of high safety, inclusivity, accessibility, and sustainability. Resilience in the face of impending climate emergencies will be crucial for the survival of communities, urban and otherwise.

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COVID-19 and Public Space As social distancing measures remain in place and patience for staying indoors wears thin, the balance of urban space dedicated to vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians is being scrutinized. People are slowly able to reclaim their cities from cars, but will these changes outlast the pandemic?

Several cities have already begun to modify their systems of mobility and public space to accommodate social distancing, embracing temporary solutions to react swiftly to the crisis.

Sidewalks and pedestrian zones are being widened in cities like Washington, D.C., and Berlin and through national funding in New Zealand.80 Entire streets are being turned over to pedestrians in cities like Oakland, which has gone so far as to close about 74 miles—or 10% of the city’s streets—to through traffic.81 Philadelphia has dedicated road space as bike lanes and has seen an increase in bicyclists as high as 471% in some locations, such as by park-adjacent Kelly Drive.82 In addition, traffic light software programming has been adjusted around the world to allow for automatic pedestrian crossing signals without the need for pushing a button, including in Boston.

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Travel restrictions have kept cars off the road, and these emptier streets have invited wild animals and unpolluted air back into cities. Coyotes are venturing out on the streets of some southern California cities,84 and measurement of microscopic air pollutants in Los Angeles have plummeted.

85

It only took a global pandemic for American politicians to recognize the value of being able to move car-free. Time will tell if people’s mid-quarantine realization of the importance and value of public space will transform into a post-pandemic transformation of streetscapes.

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URBAN SOLUTIONS DON’T WORK FOR RURAL AMERICA Discussions around public transportation tend to evoke images of crowded subway cars, city buses, regional railroads, and instigate conversations on how we can transform these modes of transportation to make them not only more functional, but also more sustainable. In doing so, however, it is critical to note that what is true for urban American is not always true for rural America. For parts of the country that are significantly less dense and less urban, and where public transit is a viable option for far fewer people, there is a particularly heavy reliance on private vehicles. In taking all of this into consideration, the key question becomes -- How can we envision a Green New Deal for Transportation that addresses the unique needs and circumstances of rural America? The primary problems with transportation in urban areas revolve around high emissions levels, inequities in access to transportation, and a lack of reliability as it relates to the frequency, punctuality, and speed of public transit services. In rural areas, however, even getting around at all can be a real struggle for many citizens.

Rural communities that exist far beyond the limits of any city are facing two key issues that are intimately intertwined: an

over-reliance on private internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and a serious lack of public transit alternatives. The combination of these two problems has left residents of sparsely populated and geographically spread out regions disproportionately exposed and vulnerable to a specific set of burdens that are different from those faced by urban dwellers.

For many rural Americans, private vehicle dependence is part of a larger culture of independence.

While ‘car culture’ is a phenomenon that pervades every corner of America, the state of affairs in many rural communities has left residents in those areas feeling as though “[their] car or [their] truck is [their] key to independence.”86 The activists and local officials who work on expanding public transit in these kinds of areas will tell you that convincing people to buy into their vision has been challenging to say the least.

The way Bob Allen of the Transportation Justice Program in Oakland, CA sees it, much of the difficulty is attributable to the fact that the burdens of public transit are largely privatized and the benefits are socialized, while the opposite is true for private vehicles.87 Even in urban areas, it is certainly true that changing the perceptions and the experiences associated with public transit are a critical part of addressing the issue. The 29

same appears to be true for rural areas, albeit for very different reasons.

Expanding public transit systems for rural America is about public health as much as anything else.

A study conducted by the America Public Transportation Association between 2000 and 2005 found that in communities of less than 200,000 residents, nearly 9% of all public transportation trips were for medical purposes.88 This may come as a surprise to many, but when examining the problem of rural public transit in America, it quickly becomes clear that this is an issue that is intimately tied to public health. In fact, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) publishes a significant amount of content that both outlines the importance of this issue as well as calls for the expansion of rural public transit programs. As they highlight in an article, Stranded: Bridging the Transportation Gap for Rural Communities, those who would benefit the most from having an easy means for getting around are often the very people who do not own or cannot operate a personal vehicle.89 This is a serious problem not only for older Americans, who are disproportionately represented in rural regions, but also for disabled and low-income residents. Not only do these communities face very limited options around travel, but the nearest healthcare service is often not so near at all.

This combination can make for real disaster when it comes to a rural resident requiring medical care, especially immediate and highly time-sensitive medical care. While some areas, such as Missouri, have worked to create localized public transit services specifically designed to help people get to and from their healthcare providers, there is still significant need for options and

alternatives to private vehicles.

The shift away from ICE vehicle dependence represents a larger shift to cleaner energy and more sustainable, resilient economies that is long overdue in rural America. As the effects of climate change continue to escalate and wreak havoc on the world, experts have predicted that rural economies will be hit especially hard. One of the reasons why is that these economies tend to be less diversified than economies in urban areas, in addition to relying heavily on agriculture and natural resources. This vulnerability has been captured particularly well by the steep decline of the coal mining industry over the last few decades, an industry which used to underpin the thriving economies and middle-class lifestyles of many rural communities. Coal, as well as the resistance to it, has become a polarizing and highly politicized issue, but the decline of this once great American industry represents a large shift that is underway. A critical but less talked-about part of this shift is the move away from ICE vehicles towards cleaner and more sustainable modes of transportation, such as electric vehicles. As discussed above, the relative lack of public transit options in rural America has created a situation in which owning a personal vehicle is the only viable option for many people when it comes to getting around. Rural residents spend about 7% more of their income on gas and vehicle expenditures than their urban counterparts, travel about 33% more, and represent 49% of all vehicle fatalities despite only making up 19% of the population.90 Even if rural America’s public transit problem were solved tomorrow, there would still be a great need to curb the use of gas-guzzling, 30

high emissions vehicles. While electric vehicles (EVs) certainly come with their own set of challenges, there does seem to be a consensus that there is more hope in EVs as an alternative, than there is in the status quo.

There is hope: public transit is a viable alternative for some in rural areas. The American Public Transit Association (APTA) found that between 2007 and 2015, there was a 8.6% increase in per-capita rural public transit ridership. It is believed that at least some of this is attributable to the fact that over the last ten years, many Americans have given up their personal vehicles because the maintenance was simply unaffordable. The cost of operating a personal vehicle can reach $3,000 annually or $20 per trip, while a five-mile rural transit trip typically costs around $7.91 This makes it rather clear why so many have chosen to opt out of the private vehicle market.92 The increase in rural ridership may also have something to do with the large numbers of elderly and disabled folks, many of whom rely entirely on public transit to get around. There does appear to be a rising consciousness, albeit slow and small, among rural residents that public transit can prove to be a safer, more affordable and more sustainable option than operating private cars. There is no doubt that increased investment in these programs and projects could truly go a long way in not only changing minds, but also in changing lives.

public transit projects in rural areas will be very different from the types of transit systems that are seen in urban areas. In order to cater to the unique geographic needs of these communities, rural public transit programs will need to include services that allow riders to call ahead of time, much like Uber, and be cognizant of the degree to which isolated elderly populations rely upon them. When it comes to rural transit, one size will simply not fit all. One might wonder why the best policy response to the problem of rural transportation is expanding public transit rather than helping to subsidize the purchase of EVs, and much of that has to do with cost/affordability, scale, and sustainability. When taking all of these factors into consideration, it is clear that expanding rural public transit will create the best outcomes for the greatest number of people.

The federal government must subsidize the expansion of rural public transit programs. It goes without saying that 31

COVID-19 and Rural Public Transportation The public health crisis caused by the novel coronavirus has devastated revenues and increased costs, as new measures have been put in place to ensure that the vehicles are clean and the drivers and passengers are safe.

According to LaQuita Thornley, the Executive Director of INCS Community Services, rural public transit systems were already operating on tight margins prior to the crisis and are now “at their wits end emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially.” This financial collapse has been compounded by a severe lack of funding, as the CARES Act funding for rural and tribal transit systems was cut from $4 billion to $2.2 billion just shortly before the bill passed.93 Rural public transit drivers also tend to be older, making them more vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19. Many of them have already opted out of work, citing concerns for their health and the health of their families. The fact that personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, and hand sanitizers are not widely available has further complicated this problem.

Many have begun to voice concerns about the long-term viability of rural public transit, worrying if it will ever be possible to return to pre-COVID ridership levels. Oklahoma State Representative, Avery Frix (R-Muskogee) stated that he expects “funding from local sources is going to plummet” and may not be available again “for years.”94

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The Role of Technology No proposals for policies to be contained within the Green New Deal should be predicated on the development of new technologies. Although some predictions, such as Moore’s Law, which predicts that the number of transistors in a microchip doubles every eighteen months, have remained extremely consistent throughout time, specific technologies have a much more erratic timeline. Half a century ago, it was almost a certainty to some that by the year 2020 humanity would have cracked open cold fusion, or that humans would have reached Mars. It may have seemed equally unlikely, by contrast, that in 2020 a toddler could discover the number of stars in the universe at the touch of a few buttons on an iphone. The development of technology is simply unpredictable, and assuming the existence of new technology when creating policy is a recipe for disaster.

Despite this, it would be remiss to not touch on how current and future technologies could impact the landscape of the Green New Deal in the upcoming decade.

In recent years, rideshare services and micro-mobility have

had varying levels of success.

Mobility services such as Uber and Lyft, have exploded in popularity and substantially impact the way we move between places. On one hand, these services require additional miles to be driven.

Instead of moving from origin to destination as is conventional, a rideshare vehicle must first move to the origin from wherever it may be. This also results in an increase in congestion on the roads as rideshare drivers frequently circle popular locations in an effort to draw more rides.95 On the other hand, rideshare services allow for fewer people to own their own vehicles, and lower the monetary barrier to travel in locations not thoroughly covered by public transportation routes. While public transportation is almost certainly more efficient and accessible in dense urban settings, rideshare services may have a place in the Green New Deal in less dense rural environments.

Moving past rideshare, micromobility services such as Lime and Bird, create pay-to-use networks of electric bikes, dockless bikes and electric scooters. These forms of transportation offer a solution 33

to help alleviate traffic congestion and provide alternatives to the standard modes of transit, but can only move at low speeds and therefore are realistically only applicable in urban settings.

The main concerns posed by micro-mobility in particular, are safety and whether current infrastructure can support the massive influx in these alternative modes of transit.

Electric vehicles create a pathway towards clean transportation, but that pathway has not yet been realized. One of the biggest motivations for the discussion of public and private transportation is the need to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. A transition to a fully electrified fleet could minimize the greenhouse gases that standard cars emit, but at the current moment, it is not as easy as advertisements may make it seem. While it is true that current-day EVs do not directly emit greenhouse gases, it is also true that the energy required to operate these vehicles still must come from somewhere. In an idealized world where all power comes from renewable sources like solar and hydro, a fleet of fully electrified vehicles would be pivotal. However, the power used to charge most EVs today still comes from oil and gas, with

the only difference from conventional cars being that the greenhouse gases are released in power plants instead of on the road. Burning fossil fuels in power plants is more efficient than in small car engines, but the difference is inconsequential. The bottom line -- electricity is only as clean as the grid producing it.

Technology only has a substantial impact when it is accessible to all.

A future where every person owns an electric car, has a home with a solar roof, flies on electric jets, and cools their home with super efficient air conditioning units is a tantalizing one. It is easy to want to make the jump from a technology entering the market to it being ubiquitous, but the fact is much of this new technology is only accessible to a fraction of the population. The median retail price for all vehicles in the U.S. in 2019 was $36,600, while the median EV cost was $55,600.96 Spending $20,000 extra for a cleaner vehicle is not a reality for most people, and while this price gap exists the transition to a fully-electrified fleet will remain a dream. The incentives discussed earlier in this proposal do help to alleviate this problem, but not nearly enough. To drive down the price of clean technology, all subsidies for dirty tech must be reallocated to the development of cheaper, cleaner technologies in order to ensure a just transition.

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POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Federal Policy We propose the following policy recommendations as a way to put our nation on a path towards a greener, more equitable, and job-stimulating future within the transportation sector.

These policies will require the coordination between the federal, state and local governments as well as the political will of federal, state and local representatives. The solutions are here and they are not that radical. The time has never been more urgent to take action. In order to achieve a Green New Deal for Transportation we propose:

1

The next President and Congress should work together to provide a massive increase in annual federal investment in public transit systems and shift the funds from an 8020 split in favor of cars to an 80-20 split in favor of transit with a focus on operations, in addition to capital spending projects.

This policy is necessary in order to remedy the priorities of the past, to better fund projects that have proven to create jobs quickly as we enter an economic depression, and to meet the goals of more accessible and reliable transit service.

The Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) State of Good Repairs formula grant program which currently matches 80% of an agency’s total project costs.

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2

Federal lawmakers should establish a new Clean Cars for Clunkers program.

This would be modeled on the Cash for Clunkers program that grew out of legislation first proposed by U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee and Steve Israel in 200997, to offer trade-in rebates for consumers to exchange their fuel-inefficient cars for new ZEVs. The focus of this policy would be on rural and low-income residents who currently rely on automobile use for transportation.

Federal transportation budget funds.

3

The federal government should establish a $18 billion/year program to cut the transit maintenance backlog in half by dedicating formula highway funds to maintenance.

Aligning with Transit Center and their analysis on previous federal funding programs, an $18/billion/year program would greatly increase funding and would allow local transit agencies to more quickly fix their transit infrastructure in need of repair. Through this action, the maintenance backlog would be cut in half in six years. While maintenance currently is an eligible use of federal dollars, federal highway funding formulas, such as the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) and the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBG) do not prioritize roadway maintenance over expansion.

Therefore, establishing this policy is necessary to address maintenance improvements.

Federal transportation budget funds.

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State Policy

1

Through partnerships with the federal government and utility companies, state governments should deploy greater investments in electric vehicle charging infrastructure and in zero-emission fleets for transit and school buses.

New, more aggressive federal clean car standards are a crucial strategy for decarbonizing the transportation sector. This transition will also ensure that we eliminate tailpipe pollution that contaminates the air and disproportionately affects front-line and low-income communities.

It is also essential for ensuring that U.S. industries stay at the leading edge of global automotive manufacturing, as countries such as China and India set clear targets to move to 100% electric and zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs).

State transportation budgets with the help from incentives such as an electric vehicle tax credit, rebates and tax exemptions.

2

States governments should implement rideshare fees to better incentivize public transit usage, while still allowing cities to benefit from the use of Transportation Network Companies (TNCs).

The increase in the use of rideshare services in the last decade has put a significant strain on traffic congestion in many cities. Many cities around the U.S. have implemented regulations and fees on ridesharing companies to alleviate these negative impacts while preserving the important role of the ridesharing services. The funding generated from the fees should be directed to the local transit agency.

TNC budgets 37

3

State governments should work with large manufacturers such as Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen to enforce the continued development of fuel efficient vehicles, following the precedent set by the State of California.98

This policy functions as a way to protect and ensure the continued presence of auto emissions standards regardless of who is in federal office. While a policy was established during the Obama administration, which aimed to set all U.S. passenger cars at an average of 51 miles per gallon by 2025, these standards are at the whim of the President. This policy would allow states more autonomy to be in control of ensuring fuel efficiency metrics for all vehicles.

No outside funding required.

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Local Policy

1

Municipal governments should establish financial incentives so that their respective metropolitan planning organization (MPO) can incorporate more Complete Streets projects, Vision Zero, and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) into their required design and planning processes.

This policy is important in order to make transit more accessible and attractive as well as discourage car-centric city planning. Incentives such as bonus funding allocations, will be used to encourage communities implementing best practices in inclusionary zoning and connecting housing with transit service. Funding programs to encourage Complete Streets and TOD include, USDOT performance rules for life-cycle climate pollution analysis, HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding allocation and prioritization, and USDA Rural Development funding.

State and local transportation department budget

2

Local governments should increase residential parking permits, implement parking maximum standards, and establish equitable congestion pricing policies to further incentivize public transit use.

Low-cost residential parking permits encourage car ownership and undervalue the land on which parking depends. Cities such as Philadelphia, should increase the base price for a residential parking permit to $100, and tier up to $250 per car for households with 4 or more vehicles. These changes will discourage car ownership and potentially alleviate congestion due to residents circling for parking.

Under the parking maximum approach, cities establish a maximum ratio for parking spaces for various development types. Developers then have the option to provide less parking than the maximum amount allowed. Parking maximums can be used along with reduced 39

parking minimums to ensure that the minimum parking needs of a transitoriented community are met while still encouraging walking and transit use.

Congestion pricing has become a tactic used by many cities around the world to curb traffic and deter people from driving into a city’s busiest areas during peak hours. Congestion pricing is a fee charged to vehicles traveling into or within a predetermined area of a city at certain hours of certain days with the hope that this stimulates an increased incentive for users to use transit instead. The money generated through congestion pricing then would be added revenue to the local transportation budget. While congestion pricing is helpful in discouraging car use during peak times, each city must be cognizant of the way in which they carry out the policy so that it does not penalize lower-income people who need to drive for work.

City government budget

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CONCLUSION A Green New Deal for Transportation represents a vision that aims to put fast, reliable transit service within walking distance to as many homes and jobs as possible. It seeks to normalize cycling and walking as sustainable modes of transit. There is a need to re-balance our current policies, which wrongly prioritize ineffective road expansion over transit investment. Just adding dollars to transit isn't enough.

While this seems like a big task, we have little choice. The future of humanity depends on reducing carbon and the transportation sector is polluter number one.

An integrated, holistic systems approach is fundamental to realizing the priorities of the Green New Deal. Transportation policy cannot evolve in a vacuum, therefore, affordable housing, land reform, and public health determine the efficacy and accessibility of public transportation. If citizens cannot afford to live in dense-metro cities, then there is no use in expanding rail lines or urban transportation networks. Furthermore, if the interstate highway system continues to be wastefully expanded and maintained, Americans will see few incentives in abandoning their automobiles 41

and commuting lifestyles. The benefits of transportation need to be socialized, which calls for drastic measures such as highway removal, universalizing transportation fees, and repurposing land for sustainable agriculture or housing.

Four central problems plague this country’s existing public transportation network namely, the prioritization of expansion over transport maintenance and reliability, the role state and federal subsidies continue to play in overwhelmingly benefiting car infrastructure at the expense of the public good, the way in which urban development benefits drivers over cyclists, commuters using public transport and those who walk, and the way rural transportation policy continue to be underfunded, underdeveloped and misguided. Any solutions to these fundamentally sociopolitical inequities need to be policy-oriented in nature, but cannot underemphasize the role that existing technologies can play in reshaping the reality of a post-Green New Deal world.

Ride-sharing services and electric vehicles, for example, present feasible alternatives to today’s gas-guzzling, individualized forms of transportation. However, the accessibility and sources of such technologies must be equitable and as of today, they face several key drawbacks. Technological solutions must become increasingly socialized, which implies that a more lasting and far-reaching 42

solution must come in the form of policy reform.

Given America’s federal system, we propose a layered, multifaceted set of policies which aim to coordinate policy on the national, state and local levels. To start, the federal government must dramatically step up its funding of the nation’s public transportation sector so that it can shift the priority from subsidizing individual travel to investing in public transport networks connecting dense urban and rural areas. Second, a version of a cash for clunkers program can be reinstated for the sake of getting used, fuel-inefficient vehicles off of the streets in exchange for a generous credit that can be used for purchasing electric vehicles primarily in rural or low-income areas. Third, an $18 billion dollar program must be established in order to increase funding to the nation’s crippled transportation infrastructure for the purpose of maintenance repair work. On the state level, governments can partner with their federal counterparts and utility companies in order to invest in clean energy infrastructure and zero-emission modes of transport, as well as better regulating the role of TNCs. Lastly, municipal governments can issue financial incentives for the purpose of making city planning hospitable to Complete Streets projects, Vision Zero, and TransitOriented Development (TOD).

Realizing a plan like the Green New Deal requires a dramatic reshuffling of governmental priorities and a systems-oriented approach towards policymaking.

Socializing a vital component of our economy means that private, individual modes of transport need to be gradually phased out to shift to a more connected, mobile urban landscape.

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Endnotes 1 https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportationgreenhouse-gas-emissions 2 https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/96summer/ p96su10.cfm 3 http://t4america.org/2020/04/14/stop-funding-transit-like-its-1982congress/ 4 http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/Trouble.pdf 5 https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/consumer-spending-on-vehiclesaveraged-8427-in-2016.htm 6 https://www.usnews.com/news/stimulus/articles/2009/05/22/obamasstimulus-projects-wont-amount-to-major-infrastructure-overhaul 7 https://greenlining.org/press/2018/the-impact-of-climate-change-oncommunities-of-color/ 8 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/02/free-public-transportation-is-areality-in-100-citiesheres-why.html 9 https://mobilitylab.org/2016/04/28/affordable-housing-and-transit/ 10 https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/04/when-living-neartransit-doesnt-lower-transportation-costs/558710/ 11 http://t4america.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/20.03_GND-Transit_ use_v4.pdf 12 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjve35/why-helsinki-is-tearing-upits-freeways 13 https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/04/urban-worst-freewaywithout-future-teardown-demolition-list/584707/ 14 https://www.septa.org/media/pdf/septa-board-approves-groundbreaking-sustainability-projects-ENGLISH.pdf 15 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3141/2351-17 16 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3141/2351-17 ibid 17 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S016920461500242X?via%3Dihub 18 https://billypenn.com/2020/02/20/how-septas-board-commutes-carswalking-and-a-bit-of-public-transit/ 19 https://inrix.com/scorecard/ 20 http://www.septa.org/service/bus/network/pdf/2018-philadelphiachoices-report-chapter-2.pdf 21 https://issuu.com/islandpress/docs/ch1__9781642830156 22 http://insights.transitcenter.org/ 23 https://www.pscp.tv/w/1djGXROjMbLxZ 24 https://www.usnews.com/news/stimulus/articles/2009/05/22/obamasstimulus-projects-wont-amount-to-major-infrastructure-overhaul 25 https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/01/08/too-little-too-late-a-decade-oftransit-investment-in-the-u-s/ 44

26 https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/01/08/too-little-too-late-a-decade-oftransit-investment-in-the-u-s/ 27 https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/23cpr/ 28 http://t4america.org/maps-tools/the-green-new-deal-fortransportation/ 29 http://t4america.org/maps-tools/the-green-new-deal-fortransportation/ 30 http://t4america.org/2020/04/14/stop-funding-transit-like-its-1982congress/ 31 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/upshot/transit-battered-bycoronavirus.html 32 http://t4america.org/2020/04/14/stop-funding-transit-like-its-1982congress/ 33 https://smartgrowthamerica.org/app/legacy/documents/lessons-fromthe-stimulus.pdf 34 https://smartgrowthamerica.org/app/uploads/2020/04/SGA-T4ALessons-from-the-Stimulus-2020.pdf 35 https://www.metro-magazine.com/government-issues/news/733440/ public-transit-infrastructure-needs-at-least-232-billion-apta-says 36 https://transitcenter.org/2-8-million-u-s-essential-workers-ride-transitto-their-jobs/ 37 https://whyy.org/articles/septa-braces-for-covid-19-headwinds-even-asfederal-help-nears/ 38 http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/Pennsylvania/ philadelphia_pa/thephiladelphiacode?f=templates$fn=default. htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:philadelphia_pa 39 https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/01/buffalo-is-first-to-removeminimum-parking-requirements-citywide/512177/ 40 http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/ economy/15view.html 41 https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/regulation/gas-tax-littleroad-costs/ 42 https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-acloser-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs 43 https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18624740/fossil-fuel-subsidies-climateimf 44 https://www.transportpolicy.net/standard/us-light-duty-fuel-economyand-ghg/ 45 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gasguzzlertax.asp 46 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cant-buy-tesla-states-161318245.html 47 https://theconversation.com/london-congestion-charge-what-workedwhat-didnt-what-next-92478 48 https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2004/february/ccharge45

celebrates-successful-first-year 49 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep41652 50 https://freepublictransport.info/city/ 51 https://www.afar.com/magazine/luxembourg-launches-worlds-firstfree-public-transit-network 52 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-results-subsidies-factbox/ factbox-electric-vehicle-subsidies-under-pressure-in-some-tesla-coremarkets-idUSKBN1ZS1H9 53 https://www.strata.org/current-state-of-electric-vehicle-subsidies/ 54 https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/13/21177324/public-transitpandemic-coronavirus 55 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lucky-stay-at-home-37-11586990315 56 https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A515383452/LT?u=upenn_ main&sid=LT&xid=57d6fe46 57 https://issuu.com/islandpress/docs/ch1__9781642830156 58 https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/03/10/its-true-the-typical-car-isparked-95-percent-of-the-time/ 59 https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/07/parking-has-eatenamerican-cities/565715/ 60 https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/bibliography/2188 61 ibid 62 https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/index.html 63 http://t4america.org/2017/01/10/introducing-dangerous-by-design-2016/ 64 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812681 65 https://peopleforbikes.org/green-lane-project/inventory-protectedbike-lanes/ 66 https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/01/10/the-unequal-toll-of-pedestriandeaths/ 67 https://ago.mo.gov/home/vehicle-stops-report/2018-executivesummary 68 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/the-stop-racepolice-traffic/ 69 https://issuu.com/islandpress/docs/ch1__9781642830156 70 https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/ articles/2017-09-18/what-new-census-data-reveal-about-americancommuting-patterns 71 https://www.epa.gov/npdes/combined-sewer-overflows-csos 72 https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/delaware-schuylkill-rivercombined-sewer-stormwater-sewage-climate-change-20190913.html 73 https://www.epa.gov/heat-islands/learn-about-heat-islands 74 https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/complete-streets 75 https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-designelements/ 46

76 https://peopleforbikes.org/green-lane-project/inventory-protectedbike-lanes/ 77 https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/road_diets/ 78 https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A515383452/LT?u=upenn_ main&sid=LT&xid=57d6fe46 79 https://www.transit.dot.gov/TOD 80 https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/04/13/new-zealandfirst-country-to-fund-pop-up-bike-lanes-widened-sidewalks-duringlockdown/#65763048546e 81 https://www.oaklandca.gov/projects/oakland-slow-streets 82 https://www.phillyvoice.com/philly-cycling-coronavirus-kelly-drive-trailcovid-19-bicycle-coalition-covid-19/ 83 https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2020/04/coronavirus-citystreet-public-transit-bike-lanes-covid-19/609190/ 84 https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/los-angeles-pollution-clean-aircoronavirus-trnd/index.html 85 https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-04-21/wildlifethrives-amid-coronavirus-lockdown 86 https://prospect.org/economy/revving-rural-public-transit/ 87 ibid 88 https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/Rural-PublicTransportation-Systems 89 https://blog.aarp.org/thinking-policy/stranded-bridging-thetransportation-gap-for-rural-communities 90 https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/ reportsandpublications/Documents/APTA-Rural-Transit-2017.pdf 91 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-seven-year-auto-loan-americasmiddle-class-cant-afford-their-cars-11569941215 92 https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/ reportsandpublications/Documents/APTA-Rural-Transit-2017.pdf 93 http://t4america.org/2020/04/27/covid-19-impacts-on-rural-transit-inoklahoma/ 94 ibid 95 https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/07/uberlyft-responsible-for-a-largeshare-of-traffic/ 96 https://qz.com/1695602/the-average-electric-vehicle-is-getting-cheaperin-the-us/ 97 https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/520 98 https://www.npr.org/2019/07/25/745389326/california-signs-deal-withautomakers-to-produce-fuel-efficient-cars

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