TSTC Goes to Washington
Tri-State Transportation Campaign representatives visited New York and New Jersey Congressional offices in Washington last week, selecting members on committees that oversee transportation, infrastructure and environmental programs. Visited were staffs of Senators Frank Lautenberg and Daniel Moynihan and Representatives Robert Franks, Susan Kelly and Susan Molinari. Representatives William Martini, Jerrold Nadler and Rick Lazio themselves attended our meetings. The only scheduled meeting to fall through was with Senator D'Amato's staff. While the discussion in each meeting ranged considerably depending on interest in transportation generally and knowledge of issues and projects within specific districts, some general themes emerged. Each Representative or staff member said they had neither encountered nor heard of strong sentiment to eliminate or seriously change the core flexible funding programs within ISTEA. One Republican staffer questioned the utility of the Transportation Enhancements program. Senator Lautenberg's staff defended federal set-asides for Intelligent Transportation Systems projects, arguing they were cost-effective for New Jersey and other areas trying to improve efficiency on existing highway systems. Generally, those we met with seemed only dimly aware of Clinton Administration proposals to collapse existing USDOT programs into more general, block-grant accounts, and didn't give it much shrift. On the other hand, no one held out any hope that emerging Congressional transit budget cuts would be restored or lessened. An idea the Campaign attempted to plant in the meetings was the development of federal transportation performance standards to be met by states in exchange for continued federal transportation funding. While meeting the goals of the Clean Air Act 1990 Amendments were the de facto standards for ISTEA, they haven't functioned effectively in that role, and for political reasons will not become more effective in coming years. Congestion reduction, state-of-good repair and other standards could replace ISTEA's nebulous "management systems" in the next version of ISTEA Rescissions bills to deauthorize unobligated federal funds for the current fiscal year hit transit projects hard, while highway projects remained unscathed. Rescissions look likely to kill funds for NJ's Mercer-Ocean-Monmouth and NY Susquehanna and Western rail projects, and for the Staten Island-midtown high speed ferry, though Susan Molinari is working to restore funds for the latter. NY Newsday reported today that House Transportation Committee Chair Bud Shuster (R-Altoona) well known for his ardent defense of highway spending, is "the grand champion for bringing home the pork. His district has been allotted $234 million for a series of highway demonstration projects, including...the 'Bud Shuster By-Way,' which runs through his hometown; another, larger project is dubbed the 'Bud Shuster Highway.'" Though Shuster generally votes the Republican line, he was one of only a handful of Republicans to vote against the line item veto for fear that presidents would jeopardize the demonstration projects he specializes in.
The Campaign also met with Federal Transit Administration officials for a wide-ranging discussion of topics from DOT reorganization to transit-oriented development. A more detailed memo recounting the meetings is available to Campaign members and affiliates.
